tfr 


HepresentattDe  ZHett 

by 
Halpb  IDaI5o  <£merson 


REPRESENTATIVE    MEN 


SEVEN    LECTURES 


BY 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 


NEW  YORK :  46  EAST  14-™  STREET 

THOMAS   Y,  CROWELL   &   COMPANY 

BOSTON:   100  PURCHASE  STREET 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I,     USES  OF  GREAT  MEN        ....        7 

II.     PLATO  ;    OR,  THE  PHILOSOPHER         .        .      35 

PLATO  :    NEW   READINGS   ....       67 

III.  SWEDENBORG  J    OR,  THE   MYSTIC        .  ^     -.       77 

IV.  MONTAIGNE  ;    OR,  THE   SKEPTIC        .         .     121 
V.     SHAKSPEARE  ;    OR,  THE   POET    .        .         .153 

VI.     NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE.  WORLD,     181 

VII.     GOETHE;    OR,  THE  WRITER      .         .         .211 
(3) 


USES   OF   GREAT   MEN 


(5) 


I. 

USES   OF   GREAT   MEN. 


IT  is  natural  to  believe  in  great  men.  If  the  com 
panions  of  our  childhood  should  turn  out  to  be 
heroes,  and  their  condition  regal,  it  would  not  sur 
prise  us.  All  mythology  opens  with  demigods,  and 
the  circumstance  is  high  and  poetic ;  that  is,  their 
genius  is  paramount.  In  the  legends  of  the  Gautama, 
the  first  men  ate  the  earth,  and  found  it  deliciously 
sweet. 

Nature  seems  to  exist  for  the  excellent.  The 
world  is  upheld  by  the  veracity  of  good  men :  they 
make  the  earth  wholesome.  They  who  lived  with 
them  found  life  glad  and  nutritious.  Life  is  sweet 
and  tolerable  only  in  our  belief  in  such  society ;  and 
actually  or  ideally  we  manage  to  live  with  superiors. 
We  call  our  children  and  our  lands  by  their  names. 
Their  names  are  wrought  into  the  verbs  of  language, 
their  works  and  effigies  are  in  our  houses,  and  every 
circumstance  of  the  day  recalls  an  anecdote  of  them. 

The  search  after  the  great  is  the  dream  of  youth 
and  the  most  serious  occupation  of  manhood.  We 
travel  into  foreign  parts  to  find  his  works  —  if  possi 
ble,  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him.  But  we  are  put  off 
with  fortune  instead.  You  say  the  English  are  prac- 

(7) 


8  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tical ;  the  Germans  are  hospitable ;  in  Valencia  the 
climate  is  delicious ;  and  in  the  hills  of  the  Sacra 
mento  there  is  gold  for  the  gathering.  Yes,  but  I 
do  not  travel  to  find  comfortable,  rich,  and  hospitable 
people,  or  clear  sky,  or  ingots  that  cost  too  much. 
But  if  there  were  any  magnet  that  would  point  to  the 
countries  and  houses  where  are  the  persons  who  are 
intrinsically  rich  and  powerful,  I  would  sell  all,  and 
buy  it,  and  put  myself  on  the  road  to-day. 

The  race  goes  with  us  on  their  credit.  The  knowl 
edge  that  in  the  city  is  a  man  who  invented  the 
railroad  raises  the  credit  of  all  the  citizens.  But 
enormous  populations,  if  they  be  beggars,  are  dis 
gusting,  like  moving  cheese,  like  hills  of  ants  or  of 
fleas  —  the  more,  the  worse. 

Our  religion  is  the  love  and  cherishing  of  these 
patrons.  The  gods  of  fable  are  the  shining  mo 
ments  of  great  men.  We  run  all  our  vessels  into  one 
mould.  Our  colossal  theologies  of  Judaism,  Christ- 
ism,  Buddhism,  Mahometism,  are  the  necessary  and 
structural  action  of  the  human  mind.  The  student 
of  history  is  like  a  man  going  into  a  warehouse  to 
buy  cloths  or  carpets.  He  fancies  he  has  a  new 
article.  If  he  go  to  the  factory,  he  shall  find  that 
his  new  stuff  still  repeats  the  scrolls  and  rosettes 
which  are  found  on  the  interior  walls  of  the  pyramids 
of  Thebes.  Our  theism  is  the  purification  of  the 
human  mind.  Man  can  paint,  or  make,  or  think 
nothing  but  man.  He  believes  that  the  great 
material  elements  had  their  origin  from  his  thought. 
And  our  philosophy  finds  one  essence  collected  or 
distributed. 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  9 

If  now  we  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  kinds  of 
service  we  derive  from  others,  let  us  be  warned  of 
the  danger  of  modern  studies,  and  begin  low  enough. 
We  must  not  contend  against  love,  or  deny  the  sub 
stantial  existence  of  other  people.  I  know  not  what 
would  happen  to  us.  We  have  social  strengths. 
Our  affection  towards  others  creates  a  sort  of  vantage 
or  purchase  which  nothing  will  supply.  I  can  do 
that  by  another  which  I  cannot  do  alone.  I  can  say 
to  you  what  I  cannot  first  say  to  myself.  Other  men 
are  lenses  through  which  we  read  our  own  minds. 
Each  man  seeks  those  of  different  quality  from  his 
own,  and  such  as  are  good  of  their  kind ;  that  is,  he 
seeks  other  men,  and  the  other est.  The  stronger 
the  nature,  the  more  it  is  reactive.  Let  us  have  the 
quality  pure.  A  little  genius  let  us  leave  alone.  A 
main  difference  betwixt  men  is,  whether  they  attend 
their  own  affair  or  not.  Man  is  that  noble  endoge 
nous  plant  which  grows,  like  the  palm,  from  within 
outward.  His  own  affair,  though  impossible  to 
others,  he  can  open  with  celerity  and  in  sport.  It  is 
easy  to  sugar  to  be  sweet,  and  to  nitre  to  be  salt. 
We  take  a  great  deal  of  pains  to  waylay  and  entrap 
that  which  of  itself  will  fall  into  our  hands.  I  count 
him  a  great  man  who  inhabits  a  higher  sphere  of 
thought,  into  which  other  men  rise  with  labor  and 
difficulty ;  he  has  but  to  open  his  eyes  to  see  things 
in  a  true  light,  and  in  large  relations ;  whilst  they 
must  make  painful  corrections,  and  keep  a  vigilant 
eye  on  many  sources  of  error.  His  service  to  us  is 
of  like  sort.  It  costs  a  beautiful  person  no  exertion 
to  paint  her  image  on  our  eyes ;  yet  how  splendid  is 


10  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

that  benefit !  It  costs  no  more  for  a  wise  soul  to 
convey  his  quality  to  other  men.  And  every  one 
can  do  his  best  thing  easiest.  "Pen  de  moyens, 
beaucoup  cTeffet"  He  is  great  who  is  what  he  is 
from  nature,  and  who  never  reminds  us  of  others. 

But  he  must  be  related  to  us,  and  our  life  receive 
from  him  some  promise  of  explanation.  I  cannot 
tell  what  I  would  know ;  but  I  have  observed  there 
are  persons  who,  in  their  character  and  actions, 
answer  questions  which  I  have  not  skill  to  put. 
One  man  answers  some  questions  which  none  of 
his  contemporaries  put,  and  is  isolated.  The  past 
and  passing  religions  and  philosophies  answer  some 
other  question.  Certain  men  affect  us  as  rich  possi 
bilities,  but  helpless  to  themselves  and  to  their 
times,  —  the  sport,  perhaps,  of  some  instinct  that 
rules  in  the  air,  — they  do  not  speak  to  our  want. 
But  the  great  are  near;  we  know  them  at  sight. 
They  satisfy  expectation,  and  fall  into  place.  What 
is  good  is  effective,  generative ;  makes  for  itself 
room,  food,  and  allies.  A  sound  apple  produces 
seed  —  a  hybrid  does  not.  Is  a  man  in  his  place, 
he  is  constructive,  fertile,  magnetic,  inundating 
armies  with  his  purpose,  which  is  thus  executed. 
The  river  makes  its  own  shores,  and  each  legiti 
mate  idea  makes  its  own  channels  and  welcome 
—  harvests  for  food,  institutions  for  expression, 
weapons  to  fight  with,  and  disciples  to  explain  it. 
The  true  artist  has  the  planet  for  his  pedestal ;  the 
adventurer,  after  years  of  strife,  has  nothing  broader 
than  his  own  shoes. 

Our  common  discourse  respects  two  kinds  of  use 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  II 

or  service  from  superior  men.  Direct  giving  is 
agreeable  to  the  early  belief  of  men ;  direct  giving 
of  material  or  metaphysical  aid,  as  of  health,  eternal 
youth,  fine  senses,  arts  of  healing,  magical  power, 
and  prophecy.  The  boy  believes  there  is  a  teacher 
who  can  sell  him  wisdom.  Churches  believe  in 
imputed  merit.  But,  in  strictness,  we  are  not  much 
cognizant  of  direct  serving.  Man  is  endogenous, 
and  education  is  his  unfolding.  The  aid  we  have 
from  others  is  mechanical,  compared  with  the  dis 
coveries  of  nature  in  us.  What  is  thus  learned  is 
delightful  in  the  doing,  and  the  effect  remains. 
Right  ethics  are  central,  and  go  from  the  soul 
outward.  Gift  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  uni 
verse.  Serving  others  is  serving  us.  I  must  ab 
solve  me  to  myself.  "  Mind  thy  affair,"  says  the 
spirit;  "coxcomb,  would  you  meddle  with  the 
skies,  or  with  other  people  ? "  Indirect  service  is 
left.  Men  have  a  pictorial  or  representative  quality, 
and  serve  us  in  the  intellect.  Behmen  and  Sweden- 
borg  saw  that  things  were  representative.  Men  are 
also  representative;  first,  of  things,  and  secondly, 
of  ideas. 

As  plants  convert  the  minerals  into  food  for  ani 
mals,  so  each  man  converts  some  raw  material  in 
nature  to  human  use.  The  inventors  of  fire,  elec 
tricity,  magnetism,  iron,  lead,  glass,  linen,  silk, 
cotton ;  the  makers  of  tools ;  the  inventor  of  deci 
mal  notation ;  the  geometer ;  the  engineer ;  the 
musician,  severally  make  an  easy  way  for  all 
through  unknown  and  impossible  confusions.  Each 
man  is,  by  secret  liking,  connected  with  some  dis- 


12  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

trict  of  nature,  whose  agent  and  interpreter  he  is, 
as  Linnaeus,  of  plants;  Huber,  of  bees;  Fries,  of 
lichens ;  Van  Mons,  of  pears ;  Dalton,  of  atomic 
forms ;  Euclid,  of  lines ;  Newton,  of  fluxions. 

A  man  is  a  centre  for  nature,  running  out  threads 
of  relation  through  everything,  fluid  and  solid,  ma 
terial  and  elemental.  The  earth  rolls;  every  clod 
and  stone  comes  to  the  meridian ;  so  every  organ, 
function,  acid,  crystal,  grain  of  dust,  has  its  relation 
to  the  brain.  It  waits  long,  but  its  turn  comes. 
Each  plant  has  its  parasite,  and  each  created  thing 
its  lover  and  poet.  Justice  has  already  been  done 
to  steam,  to  iron,  to  wood,  to  coal,  to  loadstone, 
to  iodine,  to  corn  and  cotton ;  but  how  few  materials 
are  yet  used  by  our  arts !  The  mass  of  creatures 
and  of  qualities  are  still  hid  and  expectant.  It 
would  seem  as  if  each  waite^,  like  the  enchanted 
princess  in  fairy  tales,  for  a  destined  human  de 
liverer.  Each  must  be  disenchanted,  and  walk 
forth  to  the  day  in  human  shape.  In  the  history 
of  discovery,  the  ripe  and  latent  truth  seems  to  have 
fashioned  a  brain  for  itself.  A  magnet  must  be 
made  man,  in  some  Gilbert,  or  Swedenborg,  or 
Oersted,  before  the  general  mind  can  come  to  en 
tertain  its  powers. 

If  we  limit  ourselves  to  the  first  advantages :  a 
sober  grace  adheres  to  the  mineral  and  botanic 
kingdoms,  which  in  the  highest  moments  comes  up 
as  the  charm  of  nature,  the  glitter  of  the  spar,  the 
sureness  of  affinity,  the  veracity  of  angles.  Light 
and  darkness,  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and  food, 
sweet  and  sour,  solid,  liquid,  and  gas,  circle  us 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  13 

round  in  a  wreath  of  pleasures,  and,  by  their  agree 
able  quarrel,  beguile  the  day  of  life.  The  eye  re 
peats  everyday  the  first  eulogy  on  things  —  "He 
saw  that  they  were  good.11  We  know  where  to 
find  them;  and  these  performers  are  relished  all 
the  more  after  a  little  experience  of  the  pretending 
races.  We  are  entitled,  also,  to  higher  advantages. 
Something  is  wanting  to  science,  until  it  has  been 
humanized.  The  table  of  logarithms  is  one  thing, 
and  its  vital  play,  in  botany,  music,  optics,  and 
architecture,  another.  There  are  advancements  to 
numbers,  anatomy,  architecture,  astronomy,  little 
suspected  at  first,  when,  by  union  with  intellect 
and  will,  they  ascend  into  the  life,  and  reappear  in 
conversation,  character,  and  politics. 

But  this  comes  later.  We  speak  now  only  of  our 
acquaintance  with  them  in  their  own  sphere,  and  the 
way  in  which  they  seem  to  fascinate  and  draw  to 
them  some  genius  who  occupies  himself  with  one 
thing  all  his  life  long.  The  possibility  of  interpre 
tation  lies  in  the  identity  of  the  observer  with  the 
observed.  Each  material  thing  has  its  celestial  side  ; 
has  its  translation,  through  humanity,  into  the  spirit 
ual  and  necessary  sphere,  where  it  plays  a  part  as 
indestructible  as  any  other.  And  to  these,  their 
ends,  all  things  continually  ascend.  The  gases 
gather  to  the  solid  firmament ;  the  chemic  lump 
arrives  at  the  plant,  and  grows ;  arrives  at  the 
quadruped,  and  walks;  arrives  at  the  man,  and 
thinks.  But  also  the  constituency  determines  ths 
vote  of  the  representative.  He  is  not  only  repre 
sentative,  but  participant.  Like  can  only  be  known 


14  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

by  like.  The  reason  why  he  knows  about  them 
is,  that  he  is  of  them ;  he  has  just  come  out  of 
nature,  or  from  being  a  part  of  that  thing.  Ani 
mated  chlorine  knows  of  chlorine,  and  incarnate  zinc, 
of  zinc.  Their  quality  makes  his  career ;  and  he  can 
variously  publish  their  virtues,  because  they  com 
pose  him.  Man,  made  of  the  dust  of  the  world, 
does  not  forget  his  origin ;  and  all  that  is  yet  inani 
mate  will  one  day  speak  and  reason.  Unpublished 
nature  will  have  its  whole  secret  told.  Shall  we  say 
that  quartz  mountains  will  pulverize  into  innumera 
ble  Werners,  Von  Buchs,  and  Beaumonts ;  and  the 
laboratory  of  the  atmosphere  holds  in  solution  I 
know  not  what  Berzeliuses  and  Davys? 

Thus  we  sit  by  the  fire,  and  take  hold  on  the 
poles  of  the  earth.  This  quasi  omnipresence  sup 
plies  the  imbecility  of  our  condition.  In  one  of 
those  celestial  days,  when  he*aven  and  earth  meet 
and  adorn  each  other,  it  seems  a  poverty  that  we  can 
only  spend  it  once :  we  wish  for  a  thousand  heads,  a 
thousand  bodies,  that  we  might  celebrate  its  im 
mense  beauty  in  many  ways  and  places.  Is  this 
fancy?  Well,  in  good  faith,  we  are  multiplied  by 
our  proxies.  How  easily  we  adopt  their  labors. 
Every  ship  that  comes  to  America  got  its  chart  from 
Columbus.  Every  novel  is  a  debtor  to  Homer. 
Every  carpenter  who  shaves  with  a  foreplane  borrows 
the  genius  of  a  forgotten  inventor.  Life  is  girt  all 
round  with  a  zodiac  of  sciences,  the  contributions  of 
men  who  have  perished  to  add  their  point  of  light  to 
our  sky.  Engineer,  broker,  jurist,  physician,  moral 
ist,  theologian,  and  every  man,  inasmuch  as  he  has 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEX.  15 

any  science,  is  a  definer  and  map-maker  of  the 
latitudes  and  longitudes  of  our  condition.  These 
road-makers  on  every  hand  enrich  us.  We  must 
extend  the  area  of  life,  and  multiply  our  relations. 
We  are  as  much  gainers  by  finding  a  new  property 
in  the  old  earth  as  by  acquiring  a  new  planet. 

We  are  too  passive  in  the  reception  of  these  ma 
terial  or  semi-material  aids.  We  must  not  be  sacks 
and  stomachs.  To  ascend  one  step  — we  are  bet 
ter  served  through  our  sympathy.  Activity  is  conta 
gious.  Looking  where  others  look,  and  conversing 
with  the  same  things,  we  catch  the  charm  which 
lured  them.  Napoleon  said,  "You  must  not  fight 
too  often  with  one  enemy,  or  you  will  teach  him  all 
your  art  of  war."  Talk  much  with  any  man  of  vig 
orous  mind,  and  we  acquire  very  fast  the  habit  of 
looking  at  things  in  the  same  light,  and,  on  each  oc 
currence,  we  anticipate  his  thought. 

Men  are  helpful  through  the  intellect  and  the 
affections.  Other  help,  I  find  a  false  appearance. 
If  you  affect  to  give  me  bread  and  fire,  I  perceive 
that  I  pay  for  it  the  full  price,  and  at  last  it  leaves 
me  as  it  found  me,  neither  better  nor  worse ;  but  all 
mental  and  moral  force  is  a  positive  good.  It  goes 
out  from  you,  whether  you  will  or  not,  and  profits 
me  whom  you  never  thought  of.  I  cannot  even  hear 
of  personal  vigor  of  any  kind,  great  power  of  perform 
ance,  without  fresh  resolution.  We  are  emulous  of 
all  that  man  can  do.  Cecil's  saying  of  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  "I  know  that  he  can  toil  terribly,"  is  an 
electric  touch.  So  are  Clarendon's  portraits  —  of 
Hampden  :  ' '  who  was  of  an  industry  and  vigilance 


1 6  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

not  to  be  tired  out  or  wearied  by  the  most  laborious, 
and  of  parts  not  to  be  imposed  on  by  the  most  subtle 
and  sharp,  and  of  a  personal  courage  equal  to  his 
best  parts  ;"  —  of  Falkland  :  "  who  was  so  severe  an 
adorer  of  truth  that  he  could  as  easily  have  given 
himself  leave  to  steal  as  to  dissemble."  We  cannot 
read  Plutarch  without  a  tingling  of  the  blood ;  and  I 
accept  the  saying  of  the  Chinese  Mencius  :  « '  A  sage 
is  the  instructor  of  a  hundred  ages.  When  the  man 
ners  of  Loo  are  heard  of,  the  stupid  become  intelli 
gent,  and  the  wavering,  determined." 

This  is  the  moral  of  biography ;  yet  it  is  hard  for 
departed  men  to  touch  the  quick  like  our  own  com 
panions,  whose  names  may  not  last  as  long.  What 
is  he  whom  I  never  think  of  ?  whilst  in  every  solitude 
are  those  who  succor  our  genius,  and  stimulate  us  in 
wonderful  manners.  There  is  a  power  in  love  to 
divine  another's  destiny  bettef  than  that  other  can, 
and,  by  heroic  encouragements,  hold  him  to  his  task. 
What  has  friendship  so  signal  as  its  sublime  attrac 
tion  to  whatever  virtue  is  in  us  ?  We  will  never 
more  think  cheaply  of  ourselves,  or  of  life.  We  are 
piqued  to  some  purpose,  and  the  industry  of  the 
diggers  on  the  railroad  will  not  again  shame  us. 

Under  this  head,  too,  falls  that  homage,  very 
pure,  as  I  think,  which  all  ranks  pay  to  the  hero  of 
the  day,  from  Coriolanus  and  Gracchus,  down  to 
Pitt,  Lafayette,  Wellington,  Webster,  Lamartine. 
Hear  the  shouts  in  the  street  !  The  people  cannot 
see  him  enough.  They  delight  in  a  man.  Here  is  a 
head  and  a  trunk  !  What  a  front !  What  eyes  !  At- 
lantean  shoulders,  and  the  whole  carriage  heroic, 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  17 

with  equal  inward  force  to  guide  the  great  machine  ! 
This  pleasure  of  full  expression  to  that  which,  in 
their  private  experience,  is  usually  cramped  and  ob 
structed,  runs,  also,  much  higher,  and  is  the  secret 
of  the  reader's  joy  in  literary  genius.  Nothing  is 
kept  back.  There  is  fire  enough  to  fuse  the  moun 
tain  of  ore.  Shakspeare's  principal  merit  may  be 
conveyed  in  saying  that  he,  of  all  men,  best  under 
stands  the  English  language,  and  can  say  what  he 
will.  Yet  these  unchoked  channels  and  floodgates 
of  expression  are  only  health  or  fortunate  constitu 
tion.  Shakspeare's  name  suggests  other  and  purely 
intellectual  benefits. 

Senates  and  sovereigns  have  no  compliment,  with 
their  medals,  swords,  and  armorial  coats,  like  the 
addressing  to  a  human  being  thoughts  out  of  a  cer 
tain  height,  and  presupposing  his  intelligence.  This 
honor,  which  is  possible  in  personal  intercourse 
scarcely  twice  in  a  lifetime,  genius  perpetually  pays  ; 
contented,  if  now  and  then,  in  a  century,  the  proffer 
is  accepted.  The  indicators  of  the  values  of  matter 
are  degraded  to  a  sort  of  cooks  and  confectioners,  on 
the  appearance  of  the  indicators  of  ideas.  Genius  is 
the  naturalist  or  geographer  of  the  supersensible  re 
gions,  and  draws  their  map ;  and,  by  acquainting  us 
with  new  fields  of  activity,  cools  our  affection  for  the 
old.  These  are  at  once  accepted  as  the  reality,  of 
which  the  world  we  have  conversed  with  is  the 
show. 

We  go  to  the  gymnasium  and  the  swimming- 
school  to  see  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  body ; 
there  is  the  like  pleasure,  and  a  higher  benefit,  from 


1 8  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

witnessing  intellectual  feats  of  all  kinds ;  as  feats  of 
memory,  of  mathematical  combination,  great  power 
of  abstraction,  the  transmutings  of  the  imagination, 
even  versatility  and  concentration,  as  these  acts  ex 
pose  the  invisible  organs  and  members  of  the  mind, 
which  respond,  member  for  member,  to  the  parts  of 
the  body.  For  we  thus  enter  a  new  gymnasium, 
and  learn  to  choose  men  by  their  truest  marks, 
taught,  with  Plato,  "  to  choose  those  who  can,  with 
out  aid  from  the  eyes  or  any  other  sense,  proceed  to 
truth  and  to  being."  Foremost  among  these  activ 
ities  are  the  summersaults,  spells,  and  resurrections 
wrought  by  the  imagination.  When  this  wakes,  a 
man  seems  to  multiply  ten  times  or  a  thousand  times 
his  force.  It  opens  the  delicious  sense  of  indeter 
minate  size,  and  inspires  an  audacious  mental  habit. 
We  are  as  elastic  as  the  gas  of  gunpowder,  and  a 
sentence  in  a  book  or  a  word  dropped  in  conversa 
tion  sets  free  our  fancy,  and  instantly  our  heads  are 
bathed  with  galaxies,  and  our  feet  tread  the  floor  of 
the  pit.  And  this  benefit  is  real,  because  we  are  en 
titled  to  these  enlargements,  and,  once  having  passed 
the  bounds,  shall  never  again  be  quite  the  miserable 
pedants  we  were. 

The  high  functions  of  the  intellect  are  so  allied 
that  some  imaginative  power  usually  appears  in  all 
eminent  minds,  even  in  arithmeticians  of  the  first 
class,  but  especially  in  meditative  men  of  an  intuitive 
habit  of  thought.  This  class  serve  us,  so  that  they 
have  the  perception  of  identity  and  the  perception  of 
reaction.  The  eyes  of  Plato,  Shakspeare,  Sweden- 
borg,  Goethe,  never  shut  on  either  of  these  laws. 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEM.  19 

The  perception  of  these  laws  is  a  kind  of  metre  of 
the  mind.  Little  minds  are  little,  through  failure  to 
see  them. 

Even  these  feasts  have  their  surfeit.  Our  delight 
in  reason  degenerates  into  idolatry  of  the  herald. 
Espscially  when  a  mind  of  powerful  method  has 
instructed  men,  we  find  the  examples  of  oppression. 
The  dominion  of  Aristotle,  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy, 
the  credit  of  Luther,  of  Bacon,  of  Locke,  —  in  re 
ligion,  the  history  of  hierarchies,  of  saints,  and  the 
sects  which  have  taken  the  name  of  each  founder,  — 
are  in  point.  Alas  !  every  man  is  such  a  victim.  The 
imbecility  of  men  is  always  inviting  the  impudence  of 
power.  It  is  the  delight  of  vulgar  talent  to  dazzle 
and  to  blind  the  beholder.  But  true  genius  seeks  to 
defend  us  from  itself.  True  genius  will  not  impov 
erish,  but  will  liberate,  and  add  new  senses.  If  a 
wise  man  should  appear  in  our  village,  he  would 
create,  in  those  who  conversed  with  him,  a  new  con 
sciousness  of  wealth,  by  opening  their  eyes  to  un 
observed  advantages ;  he  would  establish  a  sense  of 
immovable  equality,  calm  us  with  assurances  that  we 
could  not  be  cheated ;  as  every  one  would  discern  the 
checks  and  guaranties  of  condition.  The  rich  would 
see  their  mistakes  and  poverty,  the  poor  their  escapes 
and  their  resources. 

But  nature  brings  all  this  about  in  due  time.  Ro 
tation  is  her  remedy.  The  soul  is  impatient  of 
masters,  and  eager  for  change.  Housekeepers  say 
of  a  domestic  who  has  been  valuable,  "  She  had 
lived  with  me  long  enough."  We  are  tendencies,  or 
rather  symptoms,  and  none  of  us  complete.  We 


20  REPRESENTATIVE   MEN. 

touch  and  go,  and  sip  the  foam  of  many  lives.  Ro 
tation  is  the  law  of  nature.  When  nature  removes  a 
great  man,  people  explore  the  horizon  for  a  successor ; 
but  none  comes,  and  none  will.  His  class  is  extin 
guished  with  him.  In  some  other  and  quite  different 
field,  the  next  man  will  appear;  not  Jefferson,  not 
Franklin,  but  now  a  great  salesman;  then  a  road- 
contractor;  then  a  student  of  fishes  ;  then  a  buffalo- 
hunting  explorer,  or  a  semi-savage  Western  general. 
Thus  we  make  a  stand  against  our  rougher  masters ; 
but  against  the  best  there  is  a  finer  remedy.  The 
power  which  they  communicate  is  not  theirs.  When 
we  are  exalted  by  ideas,  we  do  not  owe  this  to 
Plato,  but  to  the  idea,  to  which,  also,  Plato  was 
debtor. 

I  must  not  forget  that  we  have  a  special  debt  to  a 
single  class.  Life  is  a  scale  of  degrees.  Between 
rank  and  rank  of  our  great  men  are  wide  intervals. 
Mankind  have,  in  all  ages,  attached  themselves  to  a 
few  persons,  who,  either  by  the  quality  of  that  idea 
they  embodied,  or  by  the  largeness  of  their  recep 
tion,  were  entitled  to  the  position  of  leaders  and  law 
givers.  These  teach  us  the  qualities  of  primary 
nature  —  admit  us  to  the  constitution  of  things.  We 
swim,  day  by  day,  on  a  river  of  delusions,  and  are 
effectually  amused  with  houses  and  towns  in  the  air, 
of  which  the  men  about  us  are  dupes.  But  life  is  a 
sincerity.  In  lucid  intervals  we  say,  "  Let  there  be 
an  entrance  opened  for  me  into  realities ;  I  have 
worn  the  fool's  cap  too  long."  We  will  know  the 
meaning  of  our  economies  and  politics.  Give  us  the 
cipher,  and,  if  persons  and  things  are  scores  of  a 


USES   OF  GREAT  ME.V.  21 

celestial  music,  let  us  read  off  the  strains.  We  have 
been  cheated  of  our  reason ;  yet  there  have  been 
sane  men  who  enjoyed  a  rich  and  related  existence. 
What  they  know  they  know  for  us.  With  each  new 
mind,  a  new  secret  of  nature  transpires ;  nor  can  the 
Bible  be  closed  until  the  last  great  man  is  born. 
These  men  correct  the  delirium  of  the  animal  spirits, 
make  us  considerate,  and  engage  us  to  new  aims  and 
powers.  The  veneration  of  mankind  selects  these 
for  the  highest  place.  Witness  the  multitude  of 
statues,  pictures,  and  memorials  which  recall  their 
genius  in  every  city,  village,  house,  and  ship  :  — 

"  Ever  their  phantoms  arise  before  us, 

Our  loftier  brothers,  but  one  in  blood; 
At  bed  and  table  they  lord  it  o'er  us, 

With  looks  of  beauty,  and  words  of  good." 

How  to  illustrate  the  distinctive  benefit  of  ideas, 
the  service  rendered  by  those  who  introduce  moral 
truths  into  the  general  mind?  —  I  am  plagued,  in  all 
my  living,  with  a  perpetual  tariff  of  prices.  If  I 
work  in  my  garden  and  prune  an  apple-tree,  I  am 
well  enough  entertained,  and  could  continue  indefi 
nitely  in  the  like  occupation.  But  it  comes  to  mind 
that  a  day  is  gone,  and  I  have  got  this  precious  noth 
ing  done.  I  go  to  Boston  or  New  York,  and  run  up 
and  down  on  my  affairs :  they  are  sped,  but  so  is  the 
day.  I  am  vexed  by  the  recollection  of  this  price  I 
have  paid  for  a  trifling  advantage.  I  remember  the 
peau  a'ane,  on  which  whoso  sat  should  have  his  de 
sire,  but  a  piece  of  the  skin  was  gone  for  every  wish. 
I  go  to  a  convention  of  philanthropists.  Do  what  I 


22  REPRESENTATIVE  MEX. 

can,  I  cannot  keep  my  eyes  off  the  clock.  But  if 
there  should  appear  in  the  company  some  gentle  soul 
who  knows  little  of  persons  or  parties,  of  Carolina  or 
Cuba,  but  who  announces  a  law  that  disposes  these 
particulars,  and  so  certifies  me  of  the  equity  which 
checkmates  every  false  player,  bankrupts  every  S2lf- 
seeker,  and  apprises  me  of  my  independence  on  any 
conditions  of  country,  or  time,  or  human  body,  that 
man  liberates  me ;  I  forget  the  clock.  I  pass  out  of 
the  sore  relation  to  persons.  I  am  healed  of  my 
hurts.  I  am  made  immortal  by  apprehending  my 
possession  of  incorruptibh  goods.  Here  is  great 
competition  of  rich  and  poor.  We  live  in  a  market, 
where  is  only  so  much  wheat,  or  wool,  or  land ;  and 
if  I  have  so  much  more,  every  other  must  have  so 
much  less.  I  seem  to  have  no  good,  without  breach 
of  good  manners.  Nobody  is  ^lad  in  the  gladness 
of  another,  and  our  system  is  one  of  war,  of  an  in 
jurious  superiority.  Every  child  of  the  Saxon  rac2 
is  educated  to  wish  to  be  first.  It  is  our  system ; 
and  a  man  comes  to  measure  his  greatness  by  t!i2 
regrets,  envies,  and  hatreds  of  his  competitors.  But 
in  these  new  fields  there  is  room :  here  are  no  self- 
esteems,  no  exclusions. 

I  admire  great  men  of  all  classes,  those  who  stand 
for  facts  and  for  thoughts ;  I  like  rough  and  smooth, 
"•scourges  of  God"  and  "darlings  of  the  human 
race."  I  like  the  first  Caesar;  and  Charles  V.,  of 
Spain;  and  Charles  XII.,  of  Sweden;  Richard  Plan- 
tagenet ;  and  Bonaparte,  in  France.  I  applaud  a 
sufficient  man,  an  officer  equal  to  his  office ;  cap 
tains,  ministers,  senators.  I  like  a  master  standing 


USES   OF  GREA  T  MEH.  23 

firm  on  legs  of  iron,  well-born,  rich,  handsome,  elo 
quent,  loaded  with  advantages,  drawing  all  men  by 
fascination  into  tributaries  and  supporters  of  his 
power.  Sword  and  staff,  or  talents  sword-like  or 
staff-like,  carry  on  the  work  of  the  world.  But  I 
find  him  greater  when  he  can  abolish  himself,  and 
all  heroes,  by  letting  in  this  element  of  reason,  ir 
respective  of  persons  ;  this  subtilizer,  and  irresistible 
upward  force,  into  our  thought,  destroying  indi 
vidualism  ;  the  power  so  great  that  the  potentate  is 
nothing.  Then  he  is  a  monarch  who  gives  a  con 
stitution  to  his  people ;  a  pontiff  who  preaches  the 
equality  of  souls,  and  releases  his  servants  from  their 
barbarous  homages ;  an  emperor  who  can  spare  his 
empire. 

But  I  intended  to  specify,  with  a  little  minuteness, 
two  or  three  points  of.  service.  Nature  never  spares 
the  opium  or  nepenthe  ;  but,  wherever  she  mars  her 
creature  with  some  deformity  or  defect,  lays  her 
poppies  plentifully  on  the  bruise,  and  the  sufferer 
goes  joyfully  through  life,  ignorant  of  the  ruin,  and 
incapable  of  seeing  it,  though  all  the  world  point 
their  finger  at  it  every  day.  The  worthless  and 
offensive  members  of  society,  whose  existence  is  a 
social  pest,  invariably  think  themselves  the  most  ill- 
used  people  alive,  and  never  get  over  their  aston 
ishment  at  the  ingratitude  and  selfishness  of  their 
contemporaries.  Our  globe  discovers  its  hidden 
virtues,  not  only  in  heroes  and  archangels,  but  in 
gossips  and  nurses.  Is  it  not  a  rare  contrivance  that 
lodged  the  due  inertia  in  every  creature,  the  conserv 
ing,  resisting  energy,  the  anger  at  being  waked  or 


24  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

changed?  Altogether  independent  of  the  intellectual 
force  in  each  is  the  pride  of  opinion,  the  security 
that  we  are  right.  Not  the  feeblest  grandame,  not  a 
mowing  idiot,  but  uses  what  spark  of  perception  and 
faculty  is  left,  to  chuckle  and  triumph  in  his  or  her 
opinion  over  the  absurdities  of  all  the  rest.  Differ 
ence  from  me  is  the  measure  of  absurdity.  Not  one 
has  a  misgiving  of  being  wrong.  Was  it  not  a 
bright  thought  that  made  things  cohere  with  this 
bitumen,  fastest  of  cements?  But,  in  the  midst  of 
this  chuckle  of  self-gratulation,  some  figure  goes  by 
which  Thersites  too  can  love  and  admire.  This  is 
he  that  should  marshal  us  the  way  we  were  going. 
There  is  no  end  to  his  aid.  Without  Plato,  we 
should  almost  lose  our  faith  in  the  possibility  of  a 
reasonable  book.  We  seem  to  want  but  one,  but 
we  want  one.  We  love  to  associate  with  heroic  per 
sons,  since  our  receptivity  is  unlimited ;  and,  with 
the  great,  our  thoughts  and  manners  easily  become 
great.  We  are  all  wise  in  capacity,  though  so  few 
in  energy.  There  needs  but  one  wise  man  in  a  com 
pany,  and  all  are  wise,  so  rapid  is  the  contagion. 

Great  men  are  thus  a  collyrium  to  clear  our  eyes 
from  egotism,  and  enable  us  to  see  other  people  and 
their  works.  But  there  are  vices  and  follies  incident 
to  whole  populations  and  ages.  Men  resemble  their 
contemporaries,  even  more  than  their  progenitors.  It 
is  observed  in  old  couples,  or  in  persons  who  have 
been  housemates  for  a  course  of  years,  that  they  grow 
like;  and  if  they  should  live  long  enough,  we 
should  not  be  able  to  know  them  apart.  Nature 
abhors  these  complaisances,  which  threaten  to  melt 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  2$ 

the  world  into  a  lump,  and  hastens  to  break  up  such 
maudlin  agglutinations.  The  like  assimilation  goes 
on  between  men  of  one  town,  of  one  sect,  of  one 
political  party ;  and  the  ideas  of  the  time  are  in  the 
air,  and  infect  all  who  breathe  it.  Viewed  from  any 
high  point,  this  city  of  New  York,  yonder  city  of 
London,  the  western  civilization,  would  seem  a  bun 
dle  of  insanities.  We  keep  each  other  in  countenance, 
and  exasperate  by  emulation  the  frenzy  of  the  time. 
The  shield  against  the  stingings  of  conscience  is  the 
universal  practice,  or  our  contemporaries.  Again  :  it  is 
very  easy  to  be  as  wise  and  good  as  your  companions. 
We  learn  of  our  contemporaries  what  they  know, 
without  effort,  and  almost  through  the  pores  of  the 
skin.  We  catch  it  by  sympathy,  or  as  a  wife  arrives 
at  the  intellectual  and  moral  elevations  of  her  hus 
band.  But  we  stop  where  they  stop.  Very  hardly 
can  we  take  another  step.  The  great,  or  such  as  hold 
of  nature,  and  transcend  fashions,  by  their  fidelity  to 
universal  ideas,  are  saviors  from  these  federal  errors, 
and  defend  us  from  our  contemporaries.  They  are 
the  exceptions  which  we  want,  where  all  grows  alike. 
A  foreign  greatness  is  the  antidote  for  cabalism. 

Thus  we  feed  on  genius,  and  refresh  ourselves 
from  too  much  conversation  with  our  mates,  and 
exult  in  the  depth  of  nature  in  that  direction  in  which 
he  leads  us.  What  indemnification  is  one  great  man 
for  populations  of  pigmies  !  Every  mother  wishes  one 
son  a  genius,  though  all  the  rest  should  be  mediocre. 
But  a  new  danger  appears  in  the  excess  of  influence 
of  the  great  man.  His  attractions  warp  us  from  our 
place.  We  have  become  underlings  and  intellectual 


26  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

suicides.  Ah  !  yonder  in  the  horizon  is  our  help : 
other  great  men,  new  qualities,  counterweights  and 
checks  on  each  other.  We  cloy  of  the  honey  of  each 
peculiar  greatness.  Every  hero  becomes  a  bore  at  last. 
Perhaps  Voltaire  was  not  bad-hearted,  yet  he  said  of 
the  good  Jesus,  even,  '« I  pray  you,  let  me  never  hear 
that  man's  name  again."  They  cry  up  the  virtues  of 
George  Washington — "Damn  George  Washing 
ton  !  "  is  the  poor  Jacobin's  whole  speech  and  confu 
tation.  But  it  is  human  nature's  indispensable 
defence.  The  centripetence  augments  the  centrifu- 
gence.  We  balance  one  man  with  his  opposite,  and 
the  health  of  the  State  depends  on  the  see-saw. 

There  is,  however,  a  speedy  limit  to  the  use  of  he 
roes.  Every  genius  is  defended  from  approach  by 
quantities  of  unavailableness.  They  are  very  attrac 
tive,  and  seem  at  a  distance  our  own ;  but  we  are 
hindered  on  all  sides  from  approach.  The  more  we 
are  drawn,  the  more  we  are  repelled.  There  is 
something  not  solid  in  the  good  that  is  done  for  us. 
The  best  discovery  the  discoverer  makes  for  himself. 
It  has  something  unreal  for  his  companion,  until  he 
too  has  substantiated  it.  It  seems  as  if  the  Deity 
dressed  each  soul  which  he  sends  into  nature  in  cer 
tain  virtues  and  powers  not  communicable  to  other 
men,  and,  sending  it  to  perform  one  more  turn 
through  the  circle  of  beings,  wrote,  ' '  Not  transfera 
ble"  and  "  Good  for  this  trip  only,"1"1  on  these  gar 
ments  of  the  soul.  There  is  somewhat  deceptive 
about  the  intercourse  of  minds.  The  boundaries  are 
invisible,  but  they  are  never  crossed.  There  is  such 
good  will  to  impart,  and  such  good  will  to  receive, 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEW.  2j 

that  each  threatens  to  become  the  other;  but  the 
law  of  individuality  collects  its  secret  strength :  you 
are  you,  and  I  am  I,  and  so  we  remain. 

For  nature  wishes  everything  to  remain  itself; 
and  whilst  every  individual  strives  to  grow  and  ex 
clude,  and  to  exclude  and  grow,  to  the  extremities 
of  the  universe,  and  to  impose  the  law  of  its  being 
on  every  other  creature,  Nature  steadily  aims  to 
protect  each  against  every  other.  Each  is  self- 
defended.  Nothing  is  more  marked  than  the  power 
by  which  individuals  are  guarded  from  individuals,  in 
a  world  where  every  benefactor  becomes  so  easily  a 
malefactor,  only  by  continuation  of  his  activity  into 
placss  where  it  is  not  due  ;  where  children  seem  so 
much  at  the  mercy  of  their  foolish  parents,  and  where 
almost  all  men  are  too  social  and  interfering.  We 
rightly  speak  of  the  guardian  angels  of  children. 
How  superior  in  their  security  from  infusions  of  evil 
persons,  from  vulgarity  and  second  thought !  They 
shed  their  own  abundant  beauty  on  the  objects  they 
behold.  Therefore,  they  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  such 
poor  educators  as  we  adults.  If  we  huff  and  chide 
them,  they  soon  come  not  to  mind  it,  and  get  a  self- 
reliance  ;  and  if  we  indulge  them  to  folly,  they  learn 
the  limitation  elsewhere. 

We  need  not  fear  excessive  influence.  A  more  gen 
erous  trust  is  permitted.  Serve  the  great.  Stick  at 
no  humiliation.  Grudge  no  office  thou  canst  render. 
Be  the  limb  of  their  body,  the  breath  of  their  mouth. 
Compromise  thy  egotism.  Who  cares  for  that,  so 
thou  gain  aught  wider  and  nobler?  Never  mind  the 
taunt  of  Boswellism :  the  devotion  may  easily  be 


28  REPRESENTATIVE  MZN. 

greater  than  the  wretched  pride  which  is  guarding  its 
own  skirts.  Be  another  —  not  thyself,  but  a  Platonist ; 
not  a  soul,  but  a  Christian ;  not  a  naturalist,  but  a 
Cartesian  ;  not  a  poet,  but  a  Shaksperian.  In  vain  ; 
the  wheels  of  tendency  will  not  stop,  nor  will  all  the 
forces  of  inertia,  fear,  or  of  love  itself,  hold  thee 
there.  On,  and  forever  onward !  The  microscope 
observes  a  monad  or  wheel-insect  among  the  in- 
fusories  circulating  in  water.  Presently  a  dot  ap 
pears  on  the  animal,  which  enlarges  to  a  slit,  and  it 
becomes  two  perfect  animals.  The  ever-proceeding 
detachment  appears  not  less  in  all  thought,  and  in 
society.  Children  think  they  cannot  live  without 
their  parents.  But  long  before  they  are  aware  of 
it,  the  black  dot  has  appeared,  and  the  detachment 
taken  place.  Any  accident  will  now  reveal  to  them 
their  independence. 

But  great  men  —  the  word  is 'injurious.  Is  there 
caste  ?  Is  there  fate  ?  What  becomes  of  the  promise 
to  virtue?  The  thoughtful  youth  laments  the  super- 
foetation  of  nature.  "  Generous  and  handsome,1' 
he  says,  "is  your  hero;  but  look  at  yonder  poor 
Paddy,  whose  country  is  his  wheelbarrow ;  look  at 
his  whole  nation  of  Paddies."  Why  are  the  masses, 
from  the  dawn  of  history  down,  food  for  knives  and 
powder?  The  idea  dignifies  a  few  leaders,  who  have 
sentiment,  opinion,  love,  self-devotion ;  and  they 
make  war  and  death  sacred;  but  what  for  the 
wretches  whom  they  hire  and  kill  ?  The  cheapness 
of  man  is  every  day's  tragedy.  It  is  as  real  a  loss 
that  others  should  be  low  as  that  we  should  be  low ; 
for  we  must  have  society. 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  29 

Is  it  a  reply  to  these  suggestions,  to  say  society  is  a 
Pestalozzian  school ;  all  are  teachers  and  pupils  in 
turn.  We  are  equally  served  by  receiving  and  by 
imparting.  Men  who  know  the  same  things  are  not 
long  the  best  company  for  each  other.  But  bring  to 
each  an  intelligent  person  of  another  experience,  and 
it  is  as  if  you  let  off  water  from  a  lake,  by  cutting  a 
lower  basin.  It  seems  a  mechanical  advantage,  and 
great  benefit  it  is  to  each  speaker,  as  he  can  now 
paint  out  his  thought  to  himself.  We  pass  very  fast, 
in  our  personal  moods,  from  dignity  to  dependence. 
And  if  any  appear  never  to  assume  the  chair,  but 
always  to  stand  and  serve,  it  is  because  we  do  not 
see  the  company  in  a  sufficiently  long  period  for  the 
whole  rotation  of  parts  to  come  about.  As  to  what 
we  call  the  masses  and  common  men  —  there  are 
no  common  men.  A.11  men  are  at  last  of  a  size  ;  and 
true  art  is  only  possible  on  the  conviction  that  every 
talent  has  its  apotheosis  somewhere.  Fair  play,  and 
an  open  field,  and  freshest  laurels  to  all  who  have 
won  them  !  But  heaven  reserves  an  equal  scope  for 
every  creature.  Each  is  uneasy  until  he  has  pro 
duced  his  private  ray  unto  the  concave  sphere,  and 
beheld  his  talent  also  in  its  last  nobility  and  exal 
tation. 

The  heroes  of  the  hour  are  relatively  great  —  of  a 
faster  growth  ;  or  they  are  such,  in  whom,  at  the 
moment  of  success,  a  quality  is  ripe  which  is  then  in 
request.  Other  days  will  demand  other  qualities. 
Some  rays  escape  the  common  observer,  and  want  a 
finely  adapted  eye.  Ask  the  great  man  if  there  be 
none  greater.  His  companions  are;  and  not  the 


30  REPRESENTATIVE  MEM. 

less  great,  but  the  more,  that  society  cannot  see 
them.  Nature  never  sends  a  great  man  into  the 
planet  without  confiding  the  secret  to  another  soul. 

One  gracious  fact  emerges  from  these  studies  — 
that  there  is  true  ascension  in  our  love.  The  repu 
tations  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  one  day  be 
quoted  to  prove  its  barbarism.  The  genius  of  hu 
manity  is  the  real  subject  whose  biography  is  written 
in  our  annals.  We  must  infer  much,  and  supply 
many  chasms  in  the  record.  The  history  of  the 
universe  is  symptomatic,  and  life  is  mnemonical. 
No  man,  in  all  the  procession  of  famous  men,  is 
reason  or  illumination,  or  that  essence  we  were  look 
ing  for,  but  is  an  exhibition,  in  some  quarter,  of 
new  possibilities.  Could  we  one  day  complete  the 
immense  figure  which  these  flagrant  points  compose  ! 
The  study  of  many  individuals  leads  us  to  an  ele 
mental  region  wherein  the  individual  is  lost,  or 
wherein  all  touch  by  their  summits.  Thought  and 
feeling,  that  break  out  there,  cannot  be  impounded 
by  any  fence  of  personality.  This  is  the  key  to  the 
power  of  the  greatest  men  —  their  spirit  diffuses  it 
self.  A  new  quality  of  mind  travels  by  night  and  by 
day,  in  concentric  circles  from  its  origin,  and  pub 
lishes  itself  by  unknown  methods ;  the  union  of  all 
minds  appears  intimate ;  what  gets  admission  to 
one  cannot  be  kept  out  of  any  other;  the  smallest 
acquisition  of  truth  or  of  energy,  in  any  quarter,  is  so 
much  good  to  the  commonwealth  of  souls.  If  the 
disparities  of  talent  and  position  vanish  when  the 
individuals  are  seen  in  the  duration  which  is  neces 
sary  to  complete  the  career  of  each,  even  more 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN.  31 

swiftly, the  seeming  injustice  disappears  when  we 
ascend  to  the  central  identity  of  all  the  individuals, 
and  know  that  they  are  made  of  the  substance  which 
ordaineth  and  doeth. 

The  genius  of  humanity  is  the  right  point  of  view 
of  history.  The  qualities  abide ;  the  men  who  ex 
hibit  them  have  now  more,  now  less,  and  pass  away; 
the  qualities  remain  on  another  brow.  No  experi 
ence  is  more  familiar.  Once  you  saw  phoenixes  :  they 
are  gone ;  the  world  is  not  therefore  disenchanted. 
The  vessels  on  which  you  read  sacred  emblems  turn 
out  to  be  common  pottery ;  but  the  sense  of  the  pict 
ures  is  sacred,  and  you  may  still  read  them  trans 
ferred  to  the  walls  of  the  world.  For  a  time  our 
teachers  serve  us  personally,  as  metres  or  milestones 
of  progress.  Once  they  were  angels  of  knowledge, 
and  their  figures  touched  the  sky.  Then  we  drew 
near,  saw  their  means,  culture,  and  limits ;  and  they 
yielded  their  place  to  other  geniuses.  Happy,  if  a 
few  names  remain  so  high  that  we  have  not  been 
able  to  read  them  nearer,  and  age  and  comparison 
have  not  robbed  them  of  a  ray.  But,  at  last,  wa 
shall  cease  to  look  in  men  for  completeness,  and 
shall  content  ourselves  with  their  social  and  dele 
gated  quality.  All  that  respects  the  individual  is 
temporary  and  prospective,  like  the  individual  him 
self,  who  is  ascending  out  of  his  limits  into  a  catho 
lic  existence.  We  have  never  come  at  the  true  and 
best  benefit  of  any  genius,  so  long  as  we  believe  him 
an  original  force.  In  the  moment  when  he  ceases  to 
help  us  as  a  cause,  he  begins  to  help  us  more  as  an 
effect.  Then  he  appears  as  an  exponent  of  a  vaster 


32  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

mind  and  will.     The  opaque  self  becomes  transpar 
ent  with  the  light  of  the  First  Cause. 

Yet,  within  the  limits  of  human  education  and 
agency,  we  may  say  great  men  exist  that  there  may 
be  greater  men.  The  destiny  of  organized  nature  is 
amelioration,  and  who  can  tell  its  limits?  It  is  for 
man  to  tame  the  chaos  ;  on  every  side,  whilst  he  lives, 
to  scatter  the  seeds  of  science  and  of  song,  that 
climate,  corn,  animals,  men,  may  be  milder,  and  the 
germs  of  love  and  benefit  may  be  multiplied. 


PLATO;    OR,   THE   PHILOSOPHER 


PLATO. 
(From  a  drawing  by  Raphael  in  the  Museum  at  Venice.) 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.      35 

II. 

PLATO;    OR,   THE   PHILOSOPHER. 


AMONG  books,  Plato  only  is  entitled  to  Omar's 
fanatical  compliment  to  the  Koran,  when  he  said, 
"  Burn  the  libraries  ;  for  their  value  is  in  this  book." 
These  sentences  contain  the  culture  of  nations  ;  these 
are  the  corner-stone  of  schools  ;  these  are  the  foun 
tain-head  of  literatures.  A  discipline  it  is  in  logic, 
arithmetic,  taste,  symmetry,  poetry,  language,  rhet 
oric,  ontology,  morals,  or  practical  wisdom.  There 
was  never  such  range  of  speculation.  Out  of  Plato 
come  all  things  that  are  still  written  and  debated 
among  men  of  thought.  Great  havoc  makes  he 
among  our  originalities.  We  have  reached  the 
mountain  from  which  all  these  drift  boulders  were 
detached.  The  Bible  of  the  learned  for  twenty-two 
hundred  years,  every  brisk  young  man  who  says  in 
succession  fine  things  to  each  reluctant  generation 
—  Boethius,  Rabelais,  Erasmus,  Bruno,  Locke,  Rous 
seau,  Alfieri,  Coleridge  —  is  some  reader  of  Plato, 
translating  into  the  vernacular,  wittily,  his  good 
things.  Even  the  men  of  grander  proportion  suffer 
some  deduction  from  the  misfortune  (shall  I  say?)  of 
coming  after  this  exhausting  generalizer.  St.  Augus 
tine,  Copernicus,  Newton,  Behmen,  Swedenborg, 


36  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Goethe,  are  likewise  his  debtors,  and  must  say  after 
him.  For  it  is  fair  to  credit  the  broadest  generalizer 
with  all  the  particulars  deducible  from  his  thesis. 

Plato  is  philosophy,  and  philosophy  Plato  —  at 
once  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  mankind,  since 
neither  Saxon  nor  Roman  have  availed  to  add  any 
idea  to  his  categories.  No  wife,  no  children,  had  he, 
and  the  thinkers  of  all  civilized  nations  are  his  pos 
terity,  and  are  tinged  with  his  mind.  How  many 
great  men  Nature  is  incessantly  sending  up  out  of 
night,  to  be  his  men  —  Platonists  !  The  Alexan 
drians,  a  constellation  of  genius ;  the  Elizabethans, 
not  less ;  Sir  Thomas  More,  Henry  More,  John 
Hales,  John  Smith,  Lord  Bacon,  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Ralph  Cudworth,  Sydenham,  Thomas  Taylor ;  Mar- 
cilius  Ficinus  and  Picus  Mirandola.  Calvinism  is 
in  his  Phaedo  ;  Christianity  is  in  it.  Mahometanism 
draws  all  its  philosophy,  in  its  handbook  of  morals, 
the  Akhlak-y-Jalaly,  from  him.  Mysticism  finds  in 
Plato  all  its  texts.  This  citizen  of  a  town  in  Greece 
is  no  villager  nor  patriot.  An  Englishman  reads 
and  says,  "How  English!"  A  German,  "How 
Teutonic!"  An  Italian,  "How  Roman  and  how 
Greek  ! "  As  they  say  that  Helen  of  Argos  had  that 
universal  beauty  that  everybody  felt  related  to  her, 
so  Plato  seems,  to  a  reader  in  New  England,  an 
American  genius.  His  broad  humanity  transcends 
all  sectional  lines. 

This  range  of  Plato  instructs  us  what  to  think  of 
the  vexed  question  concerning  his  reputed  works  — 
what  are  genuine,  what  spurious.  It  is  singular  that 
wherever  we  find  a  man  higher,  by  a  whole  head, 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.       37 

than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  it  is  sure  to  come 
into  doubt  what  are  his  real  works.  Thus  Homer, 
Plato,  Raflfaelle,  Shakspeare.  For  these  men  mag 
netize  their  contemporaries,  so  that  their  companions 
can  do  for  them  what  they  can  never  do  for  them 
selves  ;  and  the  great  man  does  thus  live  in  several 
bodies,  and  write,  or  paint,  or  act  by  many  hands ; 
and,  after  some  time,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  what  is  the 
authentic  work  of  the  master,  and  what  is  only  of  his 
school. 

Plato,  too,  like  every  great  man,  consumed  his 
own  times.  What  is  a  great  man  but  one  of  great 
affinities,  who  takes  up  into  himself  all  arts,  sciences, 
all  knovvables,  as  his  food?  He  can  spare  nothing; 
he  can  dispose  of  everything.  What  is  not  good  for 
virtue  is  good  for  knowledge.  Hence  his  contem 
poraries  tax  him  with  plagiarism.  But  the  inventor 
only  knows  how  to  borrow ;  and  society  is  glad  to 
forget  the  innumerable  laborers  who  ministered  to 
this  architect,  and  reserves  all  its  gratitude  for  him. 
When  we  are  praising  Plato,  it  seems  we  are  praising 
quotations  from  Solon,  and  Sophron,  and  Philolaus. 
Be  it  so.  Every  book  is  a  quotation ;  and  every 
house  is  a  quotation  out  of  all  forests,  and  mines, 
and  stone  quarries ;  and  every  man  is  a  quotation 
from  all  his  ancestors.  And  this  grasping  inventor 
puts  all  nations  under  contribution. 

Plato  absorbed  the  learning  of  his  times  —  Phi 
lolaus,  Timaeus,  Heraclitus,  Parmenides,  and  what 
else ;  then  his  master,  Socrates ;  and,  finding  him 
self  still  capable  of  a  larger  synthesis,  —  beyond  all 
example  then  or  since, — he  travelled  into  Italy,  to 


38  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

gain  what  Pythagoras  had  for  him ;  then  into  Egypt, 
and  perhaps  still  farther  east,  to  import  the  other 
element,  which  Europe  wanted,  into  the  European 
mind.  This  breadth  entitles  him  to  stand  as  the 
representative  of  philosophy.  He  says,  in  the  Re 
public,  « '  Such  a  genius  as  philosophers  must  of 
necessity  have  is  wont  but  seldom,  in  all  its  parts, 
to  meet  in  one  man ;  but  its  different  parts  generally 
spring  up  in  different  persons.1'  Every  man  who 
would  do  anything  well  must  come  to  it  from  a 
higher  ground.  A  philosopher  must  be  more  than 
a  philosopher.  Plato  is  clothed  with  the  powers  of  a 
poet,  stands  upon  the  highest  place  of  the  poet,  and 
(though  I  doubt  he  wanted  the  decisive  gift  of  lyric 
expression)  mainly  is  not  a  poet  because  he  chose 
to  use  the  poetic  gift  to  an  ulterior  purpose. 

Great  geniuses  have  the  shortest  biographies. 
Their  cousins  can  tell  you  nothing  about  them. 
They  lived  in  their  writings,  and  so  their  house  and 
street  life  was  trivial  and  commonplace.  If  you 
would  know  their  tastes  and  complexions,  the  most 
admiring  of  their  readers  most  resembles  them. 
Plato,  especially,  has  no  external  biography.  If  he 
had  lover,  wife,  or  children,  we  hear  nothing  of 
them.  He  ground  them  all  into  paint.  As  a  good 
chimney  burns  its  smoke,  so  a  philosopher  converts 
the  value  of  all  his  fortunes  into  his  intellectual  per* 
formances. 

He  was  born  430  A.C.,  about  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Pericles ;  was  of  patrician  connection  in  his 
times  and  city ;  and  is  said  to  have  had  an  early  in 
clination  for  war ;  but,  in  his  twentieth  year,  meeting 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        39 

with  Socrates,  was  easily  dissuaded  from  this  pursuit, 
and  remained  for  ten  years  his  scholar,  until  the 
death  of  Socrates.  He  then  went  to  Megara;  ac 
cepted  the  invitations  of  Dion  and  of  Dionysius,  to 
the  court  of  Sicily ;  and  went  thither  three  times, 
though  very  capriciously  treated.  He  travelled  into 
Italy ;  then  into  Egypt,  where  he  stayed  a  long  time : 
some  say  three,  some  say  thirteen,  years.  It  is 
said  he  went  farther,  into  Babylonia :  this  is  uncer 
tain.  Returning  to  Athens,  he  gave  lessons,  in  the 
Academy,  to  those  whom  his  fame  drew  thither ;  and 
died,  as  we  have  received  it,  in  the  act  of  writing,  at 
eighty-one  years. 

But  the  biography  of  Plato  is  interior.  We  are 
to  account  for  the  supreme  elevation  of  this  man  in 
the  intellectual  history  of  our  race  —  how  it  happens 
that,  in  proportion  to  the  culture  of  men,  they  be 
come  his  scholars ;  that  as  our  Jewish  Bible  has  im 
planted  itself  in  the  table-talk  and  household  life  of 
every  man  and  woman  in  the  European  and  American 
nations,  so  the  writings  of  Plato  have  preoccupied 
every  school  of  learning,  every  lover  of  thought, 
every  church,  every  poet,  making  it  impossible  to 
think,  on  certain  levels,  except  through  him.  He 
stands  between  the  truth  and  every  man's  mind,  and 
has  almost  impressed  language,  and  the  primary 
forms  of  thought,  with  his  name  and  seal.  I  am 
struck,  in  reading  him,  with  the  extreme  modernness 
of  his  style  and  spirit.  Here  is  the  germ  of  that 
Europe  we  know  so  well,  in  its  long  history  of  arts 
and  arms ;  here  are  all  its  traits,  already  discernible 
in  the  mind  of  Plato  —  and  in  none  before  him. 


40  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

It  has  spread  itself  since  into  a  hundred  histories, 
but  has  added  no  new  element.  This  perpetual 
modernness  is  the  measure  of  merit  in  every  work 
of  art ;  since  the  author  of  it  was  not  misled  by  any 
thing  short-lived  or  local,  but  abode  by  real  and 
abiding  traits.  How  Plato  came  thus  to  be  Europe, 
and  philosophy,  and  almost  literature,  is  the  problem 
for  us  to  solve. 

This  could  not  have  happened  without  a  sound, 
sincere,  and  catholic  man,  able  to  honor,  at  the 
same  time,  the  ideal,  or  laws  of  the  mind,  and  fate, 
or  the  order  of  nature.  The  first  period  of  a  nation, 
as  of  an  individual,  is  the  period  of  unconscious 
strength.  Children  cry,  scream,  and  stamp  with 
fury,  unable  to  express  their  desires.  As  soon  as 
they  can  speak  and  tell  their  want,  and  the  reason  of 
it,  they  become  gentle.  In  adult  life,  whilst  the  per 
ceptions  are  obtuse,  men  and  women  talk  vehemently 
and  superlatively,  blunder  and  quarrel;  their  man 
ners  are  full  of  desperation;  their  speech  is  full  of 
oaths.  As  soon  as,  with  culture,  things  have  cleared 
up  a  little,  and  they  see  them  no  longer  in  lumps 
and  masses,  but  accurately  distributed,  they  desist 
from  that  weak  vehemence,  and  explain  their  mean 
ing  in  detail.  If  the  tongue  had  not  been  framed  for 
articulation,  man  would  still  be  a  beast  in  the  forest. 
The  same  weakness  and  want,  on  a  higher  plane,  oc 
cur  daily  in  the  education  of  ardent  young  men  and 
women.  "Ah!  you  don^t  understand  me;  I  have 
never  met  with  any  one  who  comprehends  me ;  "  and 
they  sigh  and  weep,  write  verses,  and  walk  alone  — 
fault  of  power  to  express  their  precise  meaning.  In 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        41 

a  month  or  two,  through  the  favor  of  their  good 
genius,  they  meet  some  one  so  related  as  to  assist 
their  volcanic  estate  ;  and,  good  communication  be 
ing  once  established,  they  are  thenceforward  good 
citizens.  It  is  ever  thus.  The  .progress  is  to  accu 
racy,  to  skill,  to  truth,  from  blind  force. 

There  is  a  moment,  in  the  history  of  every  na 
tion,  when,  proceeding  out  of  this  brute  youth,  the 
perceptive  powers  reach  their  ripeness,  and  have  not 
yet  become  microscopic;  so  that  man,  at  that  in 
stant,  extends  across  the  entire  scale,  and,  with  his 
feet  still  planted  on  the  immense  forces  of  night, 
converses,  by  his  eyes  and  brain,  with  solar  and  stel 
lar  creation.  That  is  the  moment  of  adult  health, 
the  culmination  of  power. 

Such  is  the  history  of  Europe,  in  all  points ;  and 
such  in  philosophy.  Its  early  records,  almost  per 
ished,  are  of  the  immigrations  from  Asia,  bringing 
with  them  the  dreams  of  barbarians ;  a  confusion 
of  crude  notions  of  morals,  and  of  natural  philoso 
phy,  gradually  subsiding,  through  the  partial  insight 
of  single  teachers. 

Before  Pericles,  came  the  Seven  Wise  Masters  ;  and 
we  have  the  beginnings  of  geometry,  metaphysics,  and 
ethics ;  then  the  partialists  —  deducing  the  origin 
of  things  from  flux  or  water,,  or  from  air,  or  from 
fire,  or  from  mind.  All  mix  with  these  causes 
mythologic  pictures.  At  last,  comes  Plato,  the  dis 
tributor,  who  needs  no  barbaric  paint,  or  tattoo,  or 
whooping ;  for  he  can  define.  He  leaves  with  Asia 
the  vast  and  superlative ;  he  is  the  arrival  of  accuracy 


42  REPRESENTATIVE   MEN. 

and  intelligence.  "  He  shall  be  as  a  god  to  me, 
who  can  rightly  divide  and  define." 

This  defining  is  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  the 
account  which  the  human  mind  gives  to  itself  of  the 
constitution  of  the  world.  Two  cardinal  facts  lie 
forever  at  the  base  —  the  one,  and  the  two : 
i,  Unity,  or  Identity;  and,  2,  Variety.  We  unite 
all  things  by  perceiving  the  law  which  pervades 
them;  by  perceiving  the  superficial  differences  and 
the  profound  resemblances.  But  every  mental 
act  —  this  very  perception  of  identity  or  oneness  — 
recognizes  the  difference  of  things.  Oneness  and 
otherness.  It  is^  impossible  to  speak,  or  to  think, 
without  embracing  both. 

The  mind  is  urged  to  ask  for  one  cause  of  many 
effects ;  then  for  the  cause  of  that ;  and  again  the 
cause,  diving  still  into  the  profound ;  self-assured 
that  it  shall  arrive  at  an  absolute  and  sufficient 
one  —  a  one  that  shall  be  all.  "  In  the  midst  of 
the  sun  is  the  light,  in  the  midst  of  the  light  is  truth, 
and  in  the  midst  of  truth  is  the  imperishable  being," 
say  the  Vedas.  All  philosophy,  of  East  and  West, 
has  the  same  centripetence.  Urged  by  an  opposite 
necessity,  the  mind  returns  from  the  one  to  that  which 
is  not  one,  but  other  or  many ;  from  cause  to  effect ; 
and  affirms  the  necessary  existence  of  variety,  the 
self-existence  of  both,  as  each  is  involved  in  the 
other.  These  strictly  blended  elements  it  is  the  prob 
lem  of  thought  to  separate,  and  to  reconcile.  Their 
existence  is  mutually  contradictory  and  exclusive ; 
and  each  so  fast  slides  into  the  other  that  we  can 
never  say  what  is  one,  and  what  it  is  not.  The  Pro- 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        43 

teus  is  as  nimble  in  the  highest  as  in  the  lowest 
grounds,  when  we  contemplate  the  one,  the  true,  the 
good,  — as  in  the  surfaces  and  extremities  of  matter. 

In  all  nations  there  are  minds  which  incline  to 
dwell  in  the  conception  of  the  fundamental  Unity. 
The  raptures  of  prayer  and  ecstasy  of  devotion  lose 
all  being  in  one  Being.  This  tendency  finds  its 
highest  expression  in  the  religious  writings  of  the 
East,  and  chiefly  in  the  Indian  Scriptures,  in  the 
Vedas,  the  Bhagavat  Geeta,  and  the  Vishnu  Purana. 
Those  writings  contain  little  else  than  this  idea,  and 
they  rise  to  pure  and  sublime  strains  in  celebrating  it. 

The  Same,  the  Same :  friend  and  foe  are  of  one 
stuff;  the  ploughman,  the  plough,  and  the  furrow 
are  of  one  stuff;  and  the  stuff  is  such,  and  so  much, 
that  the  variations  of  form  are  unimportant.  "  You 
are  fit  "  (says  the  supreme  Krishna  to  a  sage)  "  to 
apprehend  that  you  are  not  distinct  from  me.  That 
which  I  am,  thou  art,  and  that  also  is  this  world, 
with  its  gods,  and  heroes,  and  mankind.  Men  con 
template  distinctions  because  they  are  stupefied  with 
ignorance."  "The  words  /and  mine  constitute 
ignorance.  What  is  the  great  end  of  all,  you  shall 
now  learn  from  me.  It  is  soul  —  one  in  all  bodies, 
pervading,  uniform,  perfect,  preeminent  over  nature, 
exempt  from  birth,  growth,  and  decay,  omnipresent, 
made  up  of  true  knowledge,  independent,  uncon 
nected  with  unrealities,  with  name,  species,  and  the 
rest,  in  time  past,  present,  and  to  come.  The 
knowledge  that  this  spirit,  which  is  essentially  one, 
is  in  one's  own  and  in  all  other  bodies  is  the  wis 
dom  of  one  who  knows  the  unity  of  things.  As  one 


44  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

diffusive  air,  passing  through  the  perforations  of  a 
flute,  is  distinguished  as  the  notes  of  a  scale,  so  the 
nature  of  the  Great  Spirit  is  single,  though  its  forms 
be  manifold,  arising  from  the  consequences  of  acts. 
When  the  difference  of  the  investing  form,  as  that  of 
God,  or  the  rest,  is  destroyed,  there  is  no  distinction.'1 
"  The  whole  world  is  but  a  manifestation  of  Vishnu, 
who  is  identical  with  all  things,  and  is  to  be  regarded 
by  the  wise  as  not  differing  from,  but  as  the  same 
as,  themselves.  I  neither  am  going  nor  coming ;  nor 
is  my  dwelling  in  any  one  place  ;  nor  art  thou,  thou ; 
nor  are  others,  others;  nor  am  I,  I."  As  if  he  had 
said,  "  All  is  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  is  Vishnu; 
and  animals  and  stars  are  transient  paintings ;  and 
light  is  whitewash  ;  and  durations  are  deceptive  ;  and 
form  is  imprisonment;  and  heaven  itself  a  decoy.1' 
That  which  the  soul  seeks  is  resolution  into  being, 
above  form,  out  of  Tartarus',  and  out  of  heaven  — 
liberation  from  nature. 

If  speculation  tends  thus  to  a  terrific  unity,  in 
which  all  things  are  absorbed,  action  tends  directly 
backwards  to  diversity.  The  first  is  the  course  or 
gravitation  of  mind;  the  second  is  the  power  of 
nature.  Nature  is  the  manifold.  The  unity  ab 
sorbs,  and  melts  or  reduces.  Nature  opens  and 
creates.  These  two  principles  reappear  and  inter 
penetrate  all  things,  all  thought ;  the  one,  the  many. 
One  is  being ;  the  other,  intellect :  one  is  necessity ; 
the  other,  freedom  :  one,  rest ;  the  other,  motion  :  one, 
power ;  the  other,  distribution :  one,  strength ;  the 
other,  pleasure :  one,  consciousness ;  the  other,  defi 
nition  :  one,  genius ;  the  other,  talent :  one,  earnest- 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        45 

ness ;  the  other,  knowledge  :  one,  possession ;  the 
other,  trade :  one,  caste ;  the  other,  culture :  one, 
king ;  the  other,  democracy :  and,  if  we  dare  carry 
these  generalizations  a  step  higher,  and  name  the 
last  tendency  of  both,  we  might  say  that  the  end  of 
the  one  is  escape  from  organization  —  pure  science  ; 
and  the  end  of  the  other  is  the  highest  instrumental 
ity,  or  use  of  means,  or  executive  deity. 

Each  student  adheres,  by  temperament  and  by 
habit,  to  the  first  or  to  the  second  of  these  gods  of 
the  mind.  By  religion,  he  tends  to  unity ;  by  intel 
lect,  or  by  the  senses,  to  the  many.  A  too  rapid 
unification,  and  an  excessive  appliance  to  parts  and 
particulars,  are  the  twin  dangers  of  speculation. 

To  this  partiality  the  history  of  nations  corre 
sponded.  The  country  of  unity,  of  immovable  insti 
tutions,  the  seat  of  a  philosophy  delighting  in 
abstractions,  of  men  faithful  in  doctrine  and  in 
practice  to  the  idea  of  a  deaf,  unimplorable,  immense 
fate,  is  Asia ;  and  it  realizes  this  faith  in  the  social  in 
stitution  of  caste.  On  the  other  side,  the  genius  of 
Europe  is  active  and  creative :  it  resists  caste  by 
culture  ;  its  philosophy  was  a  discipline ;  it  is  a  land 
of  arts,  inventions,  trade,  freedom.  If  the  East 
loved  infinity,  the  West  delighted  in  boundaries. 

European  civility  is  the  triumph  of  talent,  the  ex 
tension  of  system,  the  sharpened  understanding, 
adaptive  skill,  delight  in  forms,  delight  in  manifes 
tation,  in  comprehensible  results.  Pericles,  Athens, 
Greece,  had  been  working  in  this  element  with  the 
joy  of  genius  not  yet  chilled  by  any  foresight  of  the 
detriment  of  an  excess.  They  saw  before  them  no 


46  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sinister  political  economy;  no  ominous  Malthus ;  no 
Paris  or  London ;  no  pitiless  subdivision  of  classes 
—  the  doom  of  the  pin-makers,  the  doom  of  the 
weavers,  of  dressers,  of  stockingers,  of  carders,  of 
spinners,  of  colliers;  no  Ireland;  no  Indian  caste, 
superinduced  by  the  efforts  of  Europe  to  throw  it  off. 
The  understanding  was  in  its  health  and  prime. 
Art  was  in  its  splendid  novelty.  They  cut  the 
Pentelican  marble  as  if  it  were  snow,  and  their 
perfect  works  in  architecture  and  sculpture  seemed 
things  of  course,  not  more  difficult  than  the  comple 
tion  of  a  new  ship  at  the  Medford  yards,  or  new  mills 
at  Lowell.  These  things  are  in  course,  and  may  be 
taken  for  granted.  The  Roman  legion,  Byzantine 
legislation,  English  trade,  the  saloons  of  Versailles, 
the  cafes  of  Paris,  the  steam-mill,  steam-boat,  steam- 
coach,  may  all  be  seen  in  perspective ;  the  town- 
meeting,  the  ballot-box,  the 'newspaper  and  cheap 
press. 

Meantime  Plato,  in  Egypt  and  in  Eastern  pilgrim 
ages,  imbibed  the  idea  of  one  Deity  in  which  all 
things  are  absorbed.  The  unity  of  Asia,  and  the 
detail  of  Europe ;  the  infinitude  of  the  Asiatic  soul, 
and  the  defining,  result-loving,  machine-making,  sur 
face-seeking,  opera-going  Europe  —  Plato  came  to 
join,  and  by  contact  to  enhance,  the  energy  of  each. 
The  excellence  of  Europe  and  Asia  are  in  his  brain. 
Metaphysics  and  natural  philosophy  expressed  the 
genius  of  Europe  ;  he  substructs  the  religion  of  Asia 
as  the  base. 

In  short,  a  balanced  soul  was  born,  perceptive  of 
the  two  elements.  It  is  as  easy  to  be  great  as  to  be 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        47 

small.  The  reason  why  we  do  not  at  once  believe 
in  admirable  souls  is  because  they  are  not  in  our 
experience.  In  actual  life,  they  are  so  rare  as  to  be 
incredible ;  but,  primarily,  there  is  not  only  no  pre 
sumption  against  them,  but  the  strongest  presump 
tion  in  favor  of  their  appearance.  But  whether  voices 
were  heard  in  the  sky,  or  not ;  whether  his  mother 
or  his  father  dreamed  that  the  infant  man-child  was 
the  son  of  Apollo  ;  whether  a  swarm  of  bees  settled 
on  his  lips,  or  not  —  a  man  who  could  see  two  sides 
of  a  thing  was  born.  The  wonderful  synthesis  so 
familiar  in  nature ;  the  upper  and  the  under  side  of 
the  medal  of  Jove ;  the  union  of  impossibilities, 
which  reappears  in  every  object ;  its  real  and  its 
ideal  power  —  was  now,  also,  transferred  entire  to 
the  consciousness  of  a  man. 

The  balanced  soul  came.  If  he  loved  abstract 
truth,  he  saved  himself  by  propounding  the  most 
popular  of  all  principles,  the  absolute  good,  which 
rules  rulers,  and  judges  the  judge.  If  he  made  tran 
scendental  distinctions,  he  fortified  himself  by  drawing 
all  his  illustrations  from  sources  disdained  by  orators 
and  polite  conversers  ;  from  mares  and  puppies  ;  from 
pitchers  and  soup-ladles  ;  from  cooks  and  criers  ;  the 
shops  of  potters,  horse-doctors,  butchers,  and  fish 
mongers.  He  cannot  forgive  in  himself  a  partiality, 
but  is  resolved  that  the  two  poles  of  thought  shall 
appear  in  his  statement.  His  argument  and  his  sen 
tence  are  self-poised  and  spherical.  The  two  poles 
appear;  yes,  and  become  two  hands,  to  grasp  and 
appropriate  their  own. 

Every  great  artist   has    been    such    by  synthesis. 


48  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Our  strength  is  transitional,  alternating;  or,  shall  I 
say,  a  thread  of  two  strands.  The  seashore,  sea 
seen  from  shore,  shore  seen  from  sea ;  the  taste  of 
two  metals  in  contact ;  and  our  enlarged  powers  at 
the  approach  and  at  the  departure  of  a  friend ;  the 
experience  of  poetic  creativeness,  which  is  not  found 
in  staying  at  home,  nor  yet  in  travelling,  but  in  tran 
sitions  from  one  to  the  other,  which  must  therefore 
be  adroitly  managed  to  present  as  much  transitional 
surface  as  possible ;  this  command  of  two  elements 
must  explain  the  power  and  the  charm  of  Plato. 
Art  expresses  the  one,  or  the  same  by  the  different. 
Thought  seeks  to  know  unity  in  unity ;  poetry  to 
show  it  by  variety ;  that  is,  always  by  an  object  or 
symbol.  Plato  keeps  the  two  vases,  one  of  aether 
and  one  of  pigment,  at  his  side,  and  invariably  uses 
both.  Things  added  to  things,  as  statistics,  civil 
history,  are  inventories.  Things  used  as  language 
are  inexhaustibly  attractive.  Plato  turns  incessantly 
the  obverse  and  the  reverse  of  the  medal  of  Jove. 

To  take  an  example :  The  physical  philosophers 
had  sketched  each  his  theory  of  the  world ;  the 
theory  of  atoms,  of  fire,  of  flux,  of  spirit ;  theories 
mechanical  and  chemical  in  their  genius.  Plato,  a 
master  of  mathematics,  studious  of  all  natural  laws 
and  causes,  feels  these,  as  second  causes,  to  be  no 
theories  of  the  world,  but  bare  inventories  and  lists. 
To  the  study  of  nature  he  therefore  prefixes  the 
dogma,  "Let  us  declare  the  cause  which  led  the 
Supreme  Ordainer  to  produce  and  compose  the  uni 
verse.  He  was  good ;  and  he  who  is  good  has  no 
kind  of  envy.  Exempt  from  envy,  he  wished  that 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.         49 

all  things  should  be  as  much  as  possible  like  himself. 
Whosoever,  taught  by  wise  men,  shall  admit  this  as 
the  prime  cause  of  the  origin  and  foundation  of  the 
world  will  be  in  the  truth."  "All  things  are  for 
the  sake  of  the  good,  and  it  is  the  cause  of  every 
thing  beautiful."  This  dogma  animates  and  imper 
sonates  his  philosophy. 

The  synthesis  which  makes  the  character  of  His 
mind  appears  in  all  his  talents.  Where  there  is 
great  compass  of  wit,  we  usually  find  excellencies 
that  combine  easily  in  the  living  man,  but  in  descrip 
tion  appear  incompatible.  The  mind  of  Plato  is  not 
to  be  exhibited  by  a  Chinese  catalogue,  but  is  to  be 
apprehended  by  an  original  mind  in  the  exercise  of 
its  original  power.  In  him  the  freest  abandonment 
is  united  with  the  precision  of  a  geometer.  His 
daring  imagination  gives  him  the  more  solid  grasp  of 
facts  ;  as  the  birds  of  highest  flight  have  the  strongest 
alar  bones.  His  patrician  polish,  his  intrinsic  ele 
gance,  edged  by  an  irony  so  subtle  that  it  stings  and 
paralyzes,  adorn  the  soundest  health  and  strength  of 
frame.  According  to  the  old  sentence,  "  If  Jove 
should  descend  to  the  earth,  he  would  speak  in  the 
style  of  Plato." 

With  this  palatial  air,  there  is,  for  the  direct  aim  of 
several  of  his  works,  and  running  through  the  tenor 
of  them  all,  a  certain  earnestness,  which  mounts, 
in  the  Republic  and  in  the  Phaedo,  to  piety.  He 
has  been  charged  with  feigning  sickness  at  the  time 
of  the  death  of  Socrates.  But  the  anecdotes  that 
have  come  down  from  the  times  attest  his  manly 
interference  before  the  people  in  his  master's  behalf, 


50  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

since  even  the  savage  cry  of  the  assembly  to  Plato 
is  preserved;  and  the  indignation  towards  popular 
government,  in  many  of  his  pieces,  expresses  a  per 
sonal  exasperation.  He  has  a  probity,  a  native  rev 
erence  for  justice  and  honor,  and  a  humanity  which 
makes  him  tender  for  the  superstitions  of  the  people. 
Add  to  this,  he  believes  that  poetry,  prophecy,  and 
the  high  insight  are  from  a  wisdom  of  which  man  is 
not  master ;  that  the  gods  never  philosophize ;  but 
by  a  celestial  mania,  these  miracles  are  accomplished. 
Horsed  on  these  winged  steeds,  he  sweeps  the  dim 
regions,  visits  worlds  which  flesh  cannot  enter;  ha 
saw  the  souls  in  pain ;  he  hears  the  doom  of  the 
judge ;  he  beholds  the  penal  metempsychosis ;  the 
Fates,  with  the  rock  and  shears ;  and  hears  the  in 
toxicating  hum  of  their  spindle. 

But  his  circumspection  never  forsook  him.  One 
would  say  he  had  read  the  inscription  on  the  gates 
of  Busyrane  —  "  Be  bold  ;  "  and  on  the  second  gate 
—  "Be  bold,  be  bold,  and  evermore  be  bold ;  "  and 
then  again  had  paused  well  at  the  third  gate  —  "Be 
not  too  bold."  His  strength  is  like  -the  momentum 
of  a  falling  planet ;  and  his  discretion,  the  return  of 
its  due  and  perfect  curve  —  so  excellent  is  his  Greek 
love  of  boundary  and  his  skill  in  definition.  In 
reading  logarithms,  one  is  not  more  secure  than  in 
following  Plato  in  his  flights.  Nothing  can  be  colder 
than  his  head,  when  the  lightnings  of  his  imagination 
are  playing  in  the  sky.  He  has  finished  his  think 
ing  before  he  brings  it  to  the  reader;  and  he  abounds 
in  the  surprises  of  a  literary  master.  He  has  that 
opulence  which  furnishes,  at  every  turn,  the  precise 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        51 

weapon  he  needs.  As  the  rich  man  wears  no  more 
garments,  drives  no  more  horses,  sits  in  no  more 
chambers,  than  the  poor,  but  has  that  one  dress, 
or  equipage,  or  instrument  which  is  fit  for  the  hour 
and  the  need ;  so  Plato,  in  his  plenty,  is  never  re 
stricted,  but  has  the  fit  word.  There  is,  indeed,  no 
weapon  in  all  the  armory  of  wit  which  he  did  not 
possess  and  use  —  epic,  analysis,  mania,  intuition, 
music,  satire,  and  irony,  down  to  the  customary  and 
polite.  His  illustrations  are  poetry,  and  his  jests 
illustrations.  Socrates1  profession  of  obstetric  art  is 
good  philosophy;  and  his  finding  that  word  "  cook 
ery,1'  and  "  adulatory  art,11  for  rhetoric,  in  the 
Gorgias,  does  us  a  substantial  service  still.  No 
orator  can  measure  in  effect  with  him  who  can  give 
good  nicknames. 

What  moderation,  and  understatement,  and  check 
ing  his  thunder  in  mid  volley !  He  has  good- 
naturedly  furnished  the  courtier  and  citizen  with  all 
that  can  be  said  against  the  schools.  "For  phi 
losophy  is  an  elegant  thing,  if  any  one  modestly 
meddles  with  it ;  but  if  he  is  conversant  with  it  more 
than  is  becoming,  it  corrupts  the  man.1"  He  could 
well  afford  to  be  generous  —  he,  who  from  the  sun- 
like  centrality  and  reach  of  his  vision  had  a  faith 
without  cloud.  Such  as  his  perception  was  his 
speech  :  he  plays  with  the  doubt,  and  makes  the  most 
of  it ;  he  paints  and  quibbles  ;  and  by  and  by  comes 
a  sentence  that  moves  the  sea  and  land.  The 
admirable  earnest  comes  not  only  at  intervals,  in  the 
perfect  yes  and  no  of  the  dialogue,  but  in  bursts  of 
light.  "I,  therefore,  Callicles,  am  persuaded  by 


52  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

these  accounts,  and  consider  how  I  may  exhibit  my 
soul  before  the  judge  in  a  healthy  condition.  Where 
fore,  disregarding  the  honors  that  most  men  value, 
and  looking  to  the  truth,  I  shall  endeavor  in  reality 
to  live  as  virtuously  as  I  can ;  and  when  I  die,  to  die 
so.  And  I  invite  all  oth^r  men,  to  the  utmost  of  my 
power;  and  you,  too.  I  in  turn  invite  to  this  contest, 
which,  I  affirm,  surpasses  all  contests  here.1' 

He  is  a  great  average  man ;  one  who,  to  the  best 
thinking,  adds  a  proportion  and  equality  in  his  fac 
ulties,  so  that  men  see  in  him  their  own  dreams  and 
glimpses  made  available,  and  made  to  pass  for  what 
they  are.  A  great  common-sense  is  his  warrant  and 
qualification  to  be  the  world's  interpreter.  He  has 
reason,  as  all  the  philosophic  and  poetic  class  have  ; 
but  he  has,  also,  what  they  have  not  —  this  strong 
solving  sense  to  reconcile  his  poetry  with  the  appear 
ances  of  the  world,  and  build  £  bridge  from  the  streets 
of  cities  to  the  Altantis.  He  omits  never  this 
graduation,  but  slopes  his  thought,  however  pictur 
esque  the  precipice  on  one  side,  to  an  access  from  tlri 
plain.  He  never  writes  in  ecstasy,  or  catches  us  up 
into  poetic  raptures. 

Plato  apprehended  the  cardinal  facts.  He  could 
prostrate  himself  on  the  earth,  and  cover  his  eyes, 
whilst  he  adored  that  which  cannot  be  numbered,  or 
gauged,  or  known,  or  named;  that  of  which  every 
thing  can  be  affirmed  and  denied;  that  "which  is 
entity  and  nonentity."  He  called  it  super-essential. 
He  even  stood  ready,  as  in  the  Parmenides,  to 
demonstrate  that  it  was  so  —  that  this  Being  ex- 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        53 

ceeded  the  limits  of  intellect.  No  man  ever  more 
fully  acknowledged  the  Ineffable.  Having  paid  his 
homage,  as  for  the  human  race,  to  the  Illimitable,  he 
then  stood  erect,  and  for  the  human  race  affirmed, 
' '  And  yet  things  are  knovvable  !  "  —  that  is,  the  Asia 
in  his  mind  was  first  heartily  honored  —  the  ocean 
of  love  and  power,  before  form,  before  will,  before 
knowledge,  the  Same,  the  Good,  the  One ;  and  now, 
refreshed  and  empowered  by  this  worship,  the  instinct 
of  Europe,  namely,  culture,  returns  ;  and  he  cries, 
Yet  things  are  knowable !  They  are  knowable, 
because,  being  from  one,  things  correspond.  There 
is  a  scale  ;  and  the  correspondence  of  heaven  to  earth, 
of  matter  to  mind,  of  the  part  to  the  whole,  is  our 
guide.  As  there  is  a  science  of  stars,  called  astron 
omy  ;  a  science  of  quantities,  called  mathematics  ;  a 
science  of  qualities,  called  chemistry ;  so  there  is  a 
science  of  sciences,  — I  call  it  Dialectic,  — which  is 
the  Intellect  discriminating  the  false  and  the  true.  It 
rests  on  the  observation  of  identity  and  diversity ; 
for  to  judge  is  to  unite  to  an  object  the  notion 
which  belongs  to  it.  The  sciences,  even  the  best, — 
mathematics  and  astronomy,  —  are  like  sportsmen, 
who  seize  whatever  prey  offers,  even  without  being 
able  to  make  any  use  of  it.  Dialectic  must  teach  the 
use  of  them.  ««  This  is  of  that  rank  that  no  intel 
lectual  man  will  enter  on  any  study  for  its  own  sake, 
but  only  with  a  view  to  advance  himself  in  that  one 
sole  science  which  embraces  all." 

"  The  essence  or  peculiarity  of  man  is  to  compre 
hend  a  whole;  or  that  which,  in  the  diversity  of 
sensations,  can  be  comprised  under  a  rational  unity.1' 


54  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

"  The  soul  which  has  never  perceived  the  truth 
cannot  pass  into  the  human  form.1'  I  announce  to 
men  the  Intellect.  I  announce  the  good  of  being 
interpenetrated  by  the  mind  that  made  nature  ;  this 
benefit,  namely,  that  it  can  understand  nature,  which 
it  made  and  maketh.  Nature  is  good,  but  intellect 
is  better ;  as  the  law-giver  is  before  the  law-receiver. 
I  give  you  joy,  O  sons  of  men  !  that  truth  is  alto 
gether  wholesome ;  that  we  have  hope  to  search  out 
what  might  be  the  very  self  of  everything.  The 
misery  of  man  is  to  be  balked  of  the  sight  of  es 
sence,  and  to  be  stuffed  with  conjectures ;  but  the 
supreme  good  is  reality ;  the  supreme  beauty  is 
reality ;  and  all  virtue  and  all  felicity  depend  on  this 
science  of  the  real :  for  courage  is  nothing  else  than 
knowledge  ;  the  fairest  fortune  that  can  befall  man 
is  to  be  guided  by  his  daemon  to  that  which  is  truly 
his  own.  This  also  is  the  Essence  of  justice  —  to 
attend  every  one  his  own ;  nay,  the  notion  of  virtue 
is  not  to  be  arrived  at,  except  through  direct  con 
templation  of  the  divine  essence.  Courage,  then  ! 
for  "  the  persuasion  that  we  must  search  that  which 
we  do  not  know  will  render  us,  beyond  comparison, 
better,  braver,  and  more  industrious  than  if  we 
thought  it  impossible  to  discover  what  we  do  not 
know,  and  useless  to  search  for  it."  He  secures  a 
position  not  to  be  commanded,  by  his  passion  for 
reality ;  valuing  philosophy  only  as  it  is  the  pleasure 
of  conversing  with  real  being. 

Thus,  full  of  the  genius  of  Europe,  he  said,  Cult- 
tire.  He  saw  the  institutions  of  Sparta,  and  recog 
nized  more  genially,  one  would  say,  than  any  since, 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        55 

the  hope  of  education.  He  delighted  in  every 
accomplishment,  in  every  graceful  and  useful  and 
truthful  performance ;  above  all,  in  the  splendors  of 
genius  and  intellectual  achievement.  "The  whole 
of  life,  O  Socrates,  said  Glauco,  is  with  the  wise, 
the  measure  of  hearing  such  discourses  as  these." 
What  a  price  he  sets  on  the  feats  of  talent,  on  the 
powers  of  Pericles,  of  Isocrates,  of  Parmenides ! 
What  price,  above  price,  on  the  talents  themselves ! 
He  called  the  several  faculties  gods,  in  his  beautiful 
personation.  What  value  he  gives  to  the  art  of 
gymnastic  in  education  ;  what  to  geometry ;  what  to 
music ;  what  to  astronomy,  whose  appeasing  and 
medicinal  power  he  celebrates !  In  the  Timaeus  he 
indicates  the  highest  employment  of  the  eyes.  ««  By 
us  it  is  asserted  that  God  invented  and  bestowed 
sight  on  us  for  this  purpose  —  that,  on  surveying 
the  circles  of  intelligence  in  the  heavens,  we  might 
properly  employ  those  of  our  own  minds,  which, 
though  disturbed  when  compared  with  the  others 
that  are  uniform,  are  still  allied  to  their  circulations ; 
and  that,  having  thus  learned,  and  being  naturally 
possessed  of  a  correct  reasoning  faculty,  we  might, 
by  imitating  the  uniform  revolutions  of  divinity,  set 
right  our  own  wanderings  and  blunders."  And  in 
the  Republic  —  "By  each  of  these  disciplines  a 
certain  organ  of  the  soul  is  both  purified  and  reani 
mated,  which  is  blinded  and  buried  by  studies  of 
another  kind ;  an  organ  better  worth  saving  than  ten 
thousand  eyes,  since  truth  is  perceived  by  this 
alone." 

He  said,  Culture ;  but  he  first  admitted  its  basis, 


56  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  gave  immeasurably  the  first  place  to  advantages 
of  nature.  His  patrician  tastes  laid  stress  on  the 
distinctions  of  birth.  In  the  doctrine  of  the  organic 
character  and  disposition  is  the  origin  of  caste. 
"  Such  as  were  fit  to  govern,  into  their  composition 
the  informing  Deity  mingled  gold ;  into  the  military, 
silver;  iron  and  brass  for  husbandmen  and  artificers." 
The  East  confirms  itself,  in  all  ages,  in  this  faith. 
The  Koran  is  explicit  on  this  point  of  caste.  "  Men 
have  their  metal,  as  of  gold  and  silver.  Those  of 
you  who  were  the  worthy  ones  in  the  state  of  igno 
rance  will  be  the  worthy  ones  in  the  state  of  faith,  as 
soon  as  you  embrace  it."  Plato  was  not  less  firm : 
"Of  the  five  orders  of  things,  only  four  can  be 
taught  to  the  generality  of  men."  In  the  Republic, 
he  insists  on  the  temperaments  of  the  youth,  as  first 
of  the  first. 

A  happier  example  of  the  stress  laid  on  nature  is 
in  the  dialogue  with  the  young  Theages,  who  wishes 
to  receive  lessons  from  Socrates.  Socrates  declares 
that,  if  some  have  grown  wise  by  associating  with 
him,  no  thanks  are  due  to  him ;  but,  simply,  whilst 
they  were  with  him  they  grew  wise,  not  because 
of  him  ;  he  pretends  not  to  know  the  way  of  it.  "It 
is  adverse  to  many,  nor  can  those  be  benefited  by 
associating  with  me,  whom  the  Daemon  opposes ;  so 
that  it  is  not  possible  for  me  to  live  with  these. 
With  many,  however,  he  does  not  prevent  me  from 
conversing,  who  yet  are  not  at  all  benefited  by  as 
sociating  with  me.  Such,  O  Theages,  is  the  asso 
ciation  with  me ;  for  if  it  pleases  the  God,  you  will 
make  great  and  rapid  proficiency:  you  will  not,  if 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        57 

he  does  not  please.  Judge  whether  it  is  not  safer  to 
be  instructed  by  some  one  of  those  who  have  power 
over  the  benefit  which  they  impart  to  men  than  by 
me,  who  benefit  or  not,  just  as  it  may  happen."  As 
if  he  had  said,  "  I  have  no  system.  I  cannot  be 
answerable  for  you.  You  will  be  what  you  must.  If 
there  is  love  between  us,  inconceivably  delicious  and 
profitable  will  our  intercourse  be ;  if  not,  your  time 
is  lost,  and  you  will  only  annoy  me.  I  shall  seem  to 
you  stupid,  and  the  reputation  I  have,  false.  Quite 
above  us,  beyond  the  will  of  you  or  me,  is  this  secret 
affinity  or  repulsion  laid.  All  my  good  is  magnetic, 
and  I  educate,  not  by  lessons,  but  by  going  about 
my  business." 

He  said,  Culture ;  he  said,  Nature ;  and  he  failed 
not  to  add,  "There  is  also  the  divine."  There  is 
no  thought  in  any  mind,  but  it  quickly  tends  to 
convert  itself  into  a  power,  and  organizes  a  huge  in 
strumentality  of  means.  Plato,  lover  of  limits,  loved 
the  illimitable,  saw  the  enlargement  and  nobility 
which  come  from  truth  itself  and  good  itself,  and 
attempted,  as  if  on  the  part  of  the  human  intel 
lect,  once  for  all,  to  do  it  adequate  homage  — 
homage  fit  for  the  immense  soul  to  receive,  and 
yet  homage  becoming  the  intellect  to  render.  He 
said,  then,  "  Our  faculties  run  out  into  infinity,  and 
return  to  us  thence.  We  can  define  but  a  little 
way ;  but  here  is  a  fact  which  will  not  be  skipped, 
and  which  to  shut  our  eyes  upon  is  suicide.  All 
things  are  in  a  scale ;  and,  begin  where  we  will,  as 
cend  and  ascend.  All  things  are  symbolical ;  and 
what  we  call  results  are  beginnings." 


58  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

A  key  to  the  method  and  completeness  of  Plato  is  his 
twice-bisected  line.  After  he  has  illustrated  the  rela 
tion  between  the  absolute  good  and  true  and  the  forms 
of  the  intelligible  world,  he  says:  "  Let  there  be  a 
line  cut  in  two  unequal  parts.  Cut  again  each  of 
these  two  parts, — one  representing  the  visible,  the 
other  the  intelligible,  world,  —  and  these  two  new 
sections,  representing  the  bright  part  and  the  dark 
part  of  these  worlds,  you  will  have,  for  one  of  the 
sections  of  the  visible  world,  —  images,  that  is, 
both  shadows  and  reflections ;  for  the  other  section 
the  objects  of  these  images  —  that  is,  plants,  ani 
mals,  and  the  works  of  art  and  nature.  Then  divide 
the  intelligible  world  in  like  manner ;  the  one  sec 
tion  will  be  of  opinions  and  hypotheses,  and  the 
other  section,  of  truths."  To  these  four  sections 
the  four  operations  of  the  soul  correspond  —  conject 
ure,  faith,  understanding,  reason.  As  every  pool 
reflects  the  image  of  the  sun,  so  every  thought  and 
thing  restores  us  an  image  and  creature  of  the  su 
preme  Good.  The  universe  is  perforated  by  a  mill 
ion  channels  for  his  activity.  All  things  mount  and 
mount. 

All  his  thought  has  this  ascension ;  in  Phaedrus, 
teaching  that  beauty  is  the  most  lovely  of  all  things, 
exciting  hilarity,  and  shedding  desire  and  confidence 
through  the  universe,  wherever  it  enters ;  and  it 
enters,  in  some  degree,  into  all  things ;  but  that  there 
is  another,  which  is  as  much  more  beautiful  than 
beauty,  as  beauty  is  than  chaos ;  namely,  wisdom, 
which  our  wonderful  organ  of  sight  cannot  reach 
unto,  but  which,  could  it  be  seen,  would  ravish  us 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.         59 

with  its  perfect  reality.  He  has  the  same  regard 
to  it  as  the  source  of  excellence  in  works  of  art. 
« '  When  an  artificer,  in  the  fabrication  of  any  work, 
looks  to  that  which  always  subsists  according  to  the 
same ;  and,  employing  a  model  of  this  kind,  ex 
presses  its  idea  and  power  in  his  work ;  it  must 
follow  that  his  production  should  be  beautiful.  But 
when  he  beholds  that  which  is  born  and  dies,  it  will 
be  far  from  beautiful." 

Thus  ever :  the  Banquet  is  a  teaching  in  the  same 
spirit,  familiar  now  to  all  the  poetry,  and  to  all  the 
sermons,  of  the  world,  that  the  love  of  the  sexes  is 
initial;  and  symbolizes,  at  a  distance,  the  passion 
of  the  soul  for  that  immense  lake  of  beauty  it  exists 
to  seek.  This  faith  in  the  Divinity  is  never  out  of 
mind,  and  constitutes  the  limitation  of  all  his  dog 
mas.  Body  cannot  teach  wisdom:  God  only.  In 
the  same  mind,  he  constantly  affirms  that  virtue 
cannot  be  taught ;  that  it  is  not  a  science,  but  an 
inspiration ;  that  the  greatest  goods  are  produced 
to  us  through  mania,  and  are  assigned  to  us  by  a 
divine  gift. 

This  leads  me  to  that  central  figure  which  he  has 
established  in  his  Academy,  as  the  organ  through 
which  every  considered  opinion  shall  be  announced, 
and  whose  biography  he  has  likewise  so  labored 
that  the  historic  facts  are  lost  in  the  light  of 
Plato's  mind.  Socrates  and  Plato  are  the  double 
star,  which  the  most  powerful  instruments  will  not 
entirely  separate.  Socrates,  again,  in  his  traits  and 
genius,  is  the  best  example  of  that  synthesis  which 
constitutes  Plato's  extraordinary  power.  Socrates, 


60  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

a  man  of  humble  stem,  but  honest  enough ;  of  the 
commonest  history ;  of  a  personal  homeliness  so  re 
markable  as  to  be  a  cause  of  wit  in  others  —  the 
rather  that  his  broad  good-nature  and  exquisite  taste 
for  a  joke  invited  the  sally,  which  was  sure  to  be 
paid.  The  players  personated  him  on  the  stage ; 
the  plotters  copied  his  ugly  face  on  their  stone  jugs. 
He  was  a  cool  fellow,  adding  to  his  humor  a  perfect 
temper,  and  a  knowledge  of  his  man,  be  he  who  he 
might  whom  he  talked  with,  which  laid  the  com 
panion  open  to  certain  defeat  in  any  debate  —  and  in 
debate  he  immoderately  delighted.  The  young  men 
are  prodigiously  fond  of  him,  and  invite  him  to  their 
feasts,  whither  he  goes  for  conversation.  He  can 
drink,  too  ;  has  the  strongest  head  in  Athens  ;  and 
after  leaving  the  whole  party  under  the  table  goes 
away,  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  to  begin  new 
dialogues  with  somebody  that 'is  sober.  In  short, 
he  was  what  our  country-people  call  an  old  one. 

He  affected  a  good  many  citizen-like  tastes,  was 
monstrously  fond  of  Athens,  hated  trees,  never  will 
ingly  went  beyond  the  walls,  knew  the  old  characters, 
valued  the  bores  and  philistines,  thought  every 
thing  in  Athens  a  little  better  than  anything  in  any 
other  place.  He  was  plain  as  a  Quaker  in  habit  and 
speech,  affected  low  phrases,  and  illustrations  from 
cocks  and  quails,  soup-pans  and  sycamore-spoons, 
grooms  and  farriers,  and  unnamable  offices  —  es 
pecially  if  he  talked  with  any  superfine  person.  He 
had  a  Franklin-like  wisdom.  Thus  he  showed  one 
who  was  afraid  to  go  on  foot  to  Olympia  that  it  was 


PLATO;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        6 1 

no  more  than  his  daily  walk  within  doors,  if  contin 
uously  extended,  would  easily  reach. 

Plain  old  uncle  as  he  was,  with  his  great  ears,  — 
an  immense  talker,  —  the  rumor  ran  that,  on  one 
or  two  occasions,  in  the  war  with  Bceotia,  he  had 
shown  a  determination  which  had  covered  the  re 
treat  of  a  troop ;  and  there  was  some  story  that, 
under  cover  of  folly,  he  had,  in  the  city  government, 
when  one  day  he  chanced  to  hold  a  seat  there, 
evinced  a  courage  in  opposing  singly  the  popular 
voice,  which  had  well-nigh  ruined  him.  He  is  very 
poor;  but  then  he  is  hardy  as  a  soldier,  and  can 
live  on  a  few  olives ;  usually,  in  the  strictest  sense, 
on  bread  and  water,  except  when  entertained  by  his 
friends.  His  necessary  expenses  were  exceedingly 
small,  and  no  one  could  live  as  he  did.  He  wore  no 
under  garment ;  his  upper  garment  was  the  same  for 
summer  and  winter ;  and  he  went  barefooted ;  and 
it  is  said  that,  to  procure  the  pleasure,  which  he 
loves,  of  talking  at  his  ease  all  day  with  the  most 
elegant  and  cultivated  young  men,  he  will  now  and 
then  return  to  his  shop,  and  carve  statues,  good  or 
bad,  for  sale.  However  that  be,  it  is  certain  that  he 
had  grown  to  delight  in  nothing  else  than  this  con 
versation  ;  and  that,  under  his  hypocritical  pretence 
of  knowing  nothing,  he  attacks  and  brings  down  all 
the  fine  speakers,  all  the  fine  philosophers,  of  Athens, 
whether  natives,  or  strangers  from  Asia  Minor  and  the 
islands.  Nobody  can  refuse  to  talk  with  him,  he  is 
so  honest,  and  really  curious  to  know ;  a  man  who 
was  willingly  confuted  if  he  did  not  speak  the  truth, 
and  who  willingly  confuted  others  asserting  what 


6 2  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

was  false ;  and  not  less  pleased  when  confuted  than 
when  confuting;  for  he  thought  not  any  evil  hap 
pened  to  men  of  such  a  magnitude  as  false  opinion 
respecting  the  just  and  unjust.  A  pitiless  disputant, 
who  knows  nothing,  but  the  bounds  of  whose  con 
quering  intelligence  no  man  had  ever  reached  ;  whose 
temper  was  imperturbable  ;  whose  dreadful  logic  was 
always  leisurely  and  sportive ;  so  careless  and  igno 
rant  as  to  disarm  the  wariest,  and  draw  them,  in  the 
pleasantest  manner,  into  horrible  doubts  and  confu 
sion.  But  he  always  knew  the  way  out ;  knew  it, 
yet  would  not  tell  it.  No  escape  ;  he  drives  them  to 
terrible  choices  by  his  dilemmas,  and  tosses  the 
Hippiases  and  Gorgiases,  with  their  grand  reputa 
tions,  as  a  boy  tosses  his  balls.  The  tyrannous  real 
ist  !  —  Meno  has  discoursed  a  thousand  times,  at 
length,  on  virtue,  before  many  companies,  and  very 
well,  as  it  appeared  to  him ;  but,  at  this  moment,  lie 
cannot  even  tell  what  it  is  —  this  cramp-fish  of  a 
Socrates  has  so  bewitched  him. 

This  hard-headed  humorist,  whose  strange  con 
ceits,  drollery,  and  bonhommie  diverted  the  young 
patricians,  whilst  the  rumor  of  his  sayings  and  quib 
bles  gets  abroad  every  day,  turns  out,  in  the  sequel, 
to  have  a  probity  as  invincible  as  his  logic,  and  to 
be  either  insane,  or,  at  least,  under  cover  of  this 
play,  enthusiastic  in  his  religion.  When  accused 
before  the  judges  of  subverting  the  popular  creed,  he 
affirms  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  future  reward 
and  punishment;  and,  refusing  to  recant,  in  a  ca 
price  of  the  popular  government,  was  condemned  to 
die,  and  sent  to  the  prison.  Socrates  entered  the 


PLATO ;    OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.        63 

prison,  and  took  away  all  ignominy  from  the  place, 
which  could  not  be  a  prison  whilst  he  was  there. 
Crito  bribed  the  jailer ;  but  Socrates  would  not  go 
out  by  treachery.  "  Whatever  inconvenience  ensue, 
nothing  is  to  be  preferred  before  justice.  These 
things  I  hear  like  pipes  and  drums,  whose  sound 
makes  me  deaf  to  everything  you  say."  The  fame 
of  this  prison,  the  fame  of  the  discourses  there,  and 
the  drinking  of  the  hemlock,  are  one  of  the  most 
precious  passages  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  rare  coincidence,  in  one  ugly  body,  of  the 
droll  and  the  martyr,  the  keen  street  and  market 
debater  with  the  sweetest  saint  known  to  any  history 
at  that  time,  had  forcibly  struck  the  mind  of  Plato, 
so  capacious  of  these  contrasts ;  and  the  figure  of 
Socrates,  by  a  necessity,  placed  itself  in  the  fore 
ground  of  the  scene,  as  the  fittest  dispenser  of  the 
intellectual  treasures  he  had  to  communicate.  It 
was  a  rare  fortune  that  this  y£sop  of  the  mob  and 
this  robed  scholar  should  meet,  to  make  each  other 
immortal  in  their  mutual  faculty.  The  strange  syn 
thesis  in  the  character  of  Socrates  capped  the  syn 
thesis  in  the  mind  of  Plato.  Moreover,  by  this 
means,  he  was  able,  in  the  direct  way,  and  without 
envy,  to  avail  himself  of  the  wit  and  weight  of 
Socrates,  to  which  unquestionably  his  own  debt  was 
great ;  and  these  derived  again  their  principal  advan 
tage  from  the  perfect  art  of  Plato. 

It  remains  to  say  that  the  defect  of  Plato  in  power 
is  only  that  which  results  inevitably  from  his  quality. 
He  is  intellectual  in  his  aim  ;  and  therefore,  in  ex 
pression,  literary.  Mounting  into  heaven,  diving 


64  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

into  the  pit,  expounding  the  laws  of  the  State,  the 
passion  of  love,  the  remorse  of  crime,  the  hope  of 
the  parting  soul,  —  he  is  literary,  and  never  other 
wise.  It  is  almost  the  sole  deduction  from  the  merit 
of  Plato  that  his  writings  have  not  —  what  is,  no 
doubt,  incident  to  this  regnancy  of  intellect  in  his 
work  —  the  vital  authority  which  the  screams  of 
prophets  and  the  sermons  of  unlettered  Arabs  and 
Jews  possess.  There  is  an  interval ;  and  to  cohe 
sion,  contact  is  necessary. 

I  know  not  what  can  be  said  in  reply  to  this  criti 
cism,  but  that  we  have  come  to  a  fact  in  the  nature 
of  things :  an  oak  is  not  an  orange.  The  qualities 
of  sugar  remain  with  sugar,  and  those  of  salt  with 
salt. 

In  the  second  place,  he  has  not  a  system.  The 
dearest  defenders  and  disciples  are  at  fault.  He  at 
tempted  a  theory  of  the  universe,  and  his  theory  is 
not  complete  or  self-evident.  One  man  thinks  he 
means  this,  and  another  that;  he  has  said  one 
thing  in  one  place,  and  the  reverse  of  it  in  another 
place.  He  is  charged  with  having  failed  to  make 
the  transition  from  ideas  to  matter.  Here  is  the 
world,  sound  as  a  nut,  perfect,  not  the  smallest  piece 
of  chaos  left,  never  a  stitch  nor  an  end,  not  a  mark 
of  haste,  or  botching,  or  second  thought ;  but  the 
theory  of  the  world  is  a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches. 

The  longest  wave  is  quickly  lost  in  the  sea. 
Plato  would  willingly  have  a  Platonism,  a  known 
and  accurate  expression  for  the  world,  and  it  should 
be  accurate.  It  shall  be  the  world  passed  through 
the  mind  of  Plato  —  nothing  less.  Every  atom  shall 


PLATO;    OR,     THE  PHILOSOPHER.        65 

have  the  Platonic  tinge ;  every  atom,  every  relation 
or  quality  you  knew  before,  you  shall  know  again, 
and  find  here,  but  now  ordered ;  not  nature,  but  art. 
And  you  shall  feel  that  Alexander  indeed  overran, 
with  men  and  horses,  some  countries  of  the  planet ; 
but  countries,  and  things  of  which  countries  are 
made,  elements,  planet  itself,  laws  of  planet  and  of 
men,  have  passed  through  this  man  as  bread  into  his 
body,  and  become  no  longer  bread,  but  body ;  so  all 
this  mammoth  morsel  has  become  Plato.  He  has 
clapped  copyright  on  the  world.  This  is  the  ambi 
tion  of  individualism.  But  the  mouthful  proves  too 
large.  Boa  constrictor  has  good  will  to  eat  it,  but 
he  is  foiled.  He  falls  abroad  in  the  attempt,  and, 
biting,  gets  strangled ;  the  bitten  world  holds  the 
biter  fast  by  his  own  teeth.  There  he  perishes  ;  un- 
conquered  nature  lives  on,  and  forgets  him.  So  it 
fares  with  all :  so  must  it  fare  with  Plato.  In  view 
of  eternal  nature,  Plato  turns  out  to  be  philosophical 
exercitations.  He  argues  on  this  side,  and  on  that. 
The  acutest  German,  the  lovingest  disciple,  could 
never  tell  what  Platonism  was ;  indeed,  admirable 
texts  can  be  quoted  on  both  sides  of  every  great 
question  from  him. 

These  things  we  are  forced  to  say,  if  we  must  con 
sider  the  effort  of  Plato,  or  of  any  philosopher,  to 
dispose  of  Nature  —  which  will  not  be  disposed  of. 
No  power  of  genius  has  ever  yet  had  the  smallest 
success  in  explaining  existence.  The  perfect  enigma 
remains.  But  there  is  an  injustice  in  assuming  this 
ambition  for  Plato.  Let  us  not  seem  to  treat  with 
flippancy  his  venerable  name.  Men,  in  proportion 


66  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

to  their  intellect,  have  admitted  his  transcendent 
claims.  The  way  to  know  him  is  to  compare  him, 
not  with  nature,  but  with  other  men.  How  many 
ages  have  gone  by,  and  he  remains  unapproached ! 
A  chief  structure  of  human  wit,  like  Karnac,  or  the 
mediaeval  cathedrals,  or  the  Etrurian  remains,  it  re 
quires  all  the  breadth  of  human  faculty  to  know  it.  I 
think  it  is  trueliest  seen  when  seen  with  the  most 
respect.  His  sense  deepens,  his  merits  multiply, 
with  study.  When  we  say,  Here  is  a  fine  collection 
of  fables  ;  or  when  we  praise  the  style  ;  or  the  com 
mon  sense ;  or  arithmetic ;  we  speak  as  boys,  and 
much  of  our  impatient  criticism  of  the  dialectic,  I 
suspect,  is  no  better.  The  criticism  is  like  our  im 
patience  of  miles  when  we  are  in  a  hurry ;  but  it  is 
still  best  that  a  mile  should  have  seventeen  hundred 
and  sixty  yards.  The  great-eyed  Plato  proportioned 
the  lights  and  shades  after  the  genius  of  our  life. 


PLATO:  NEW  READINGS.  67 


PLATO:    NEW   READINGS. 


THE  publication,  in  Mr.  Bonn's  "  Serial  Library," 
of  the  excellent  translations  of  Plato,  which  we  es 
teem  one  of  the  chief  benefits  the  cheap  press  has 
yielded,  gives  us  an  occasion  to  take  hastily  a  few 
more  notes  of  the  elevation  and  bearings  of  this 
fixed  star;  or  to  add  a  bulletin,  like  the  journals,  of 
Plato  at  the  latest  dates. 

Modern  science,  by  the  extent  of  its  generalization, 
has  learned  to  indemnify  the  student  of  man  for  the 
defects  of  individuals  by  tracing  growth  and  ascent  in 
races,  and,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  lighting  up  the 
vast  background,  generates  a  feeling  of  complacency 
and  hope.  The  human  being  has  the  saurian  and 
the  plant  in  his  rear.  His  arts  and  sciences,  the 
easy  issue  of  his  brain,  look  glorious  when  prospec- 
tively  beheld  from  the  distant  brain  of  ox,  crocodile, 
and  fish.  It  seems  as  if  nature,  in  regarding  the 
geologic  night  behind  her,  when,  in  five  or  six 
millenniums,  she  had  turned  out  five  or  six  men,  as 
Homer,  Phidias,  Menu,  and  Columbus,  was  no  wise 
discontented  with  the  result.  These  samples  attested 
the  virtue  of  the  tree.  These  were  a  clear  ameliora 
tion  of  trilobite  and  saurus,  and  a  good  basis  for 
further  proceeding.  With  this  artist  time  and  space 
are  cheap,  and  she  is  insensible  to  what  you  say  of 
tedious  preparation.  She  waited  tranquilly  the  flow- 


68  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

ing  periods  of  paleontology,  for  the  hour  to  be  struck 
when  man  should  arrive.  Then  periods  must  pass 
before  the  motion  of  the  earth  can  be  suspected ; 
then  before  the  map  of  the  instincts  and  the  cultivable 
powers  can  be  drawn.  But  as  of  races,  so  the  suc 
cession  of  individual  men  is  fatal  and  beautiful,  and 
Plato  has  the  fortune,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  to 
mark  an  epoch. 

Plato's  fame  does  not  stand  on  a  syllogism,  or  on 
any  masterpieces  of  the  Socratic  reasoning,  or  on  any 
thesis  ;  as,  for  example,  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
He  is  more  than  an  expert,  or  a  schoolman,  or  a 
geometer,  or  the  prophet  of  a  peculiar  message.  He 
represents  the  privilege  of  the  intellect,  the  power, 
namely,  of  carrying  up  every  fact  to  successive  plat 
forms,  and  so  disclosing  in  every  fact  a  germ  of  ex 
pansion.  These  expansions  are  in  the  essence  of 
thought.  The  naturalist  would  riever  help  us  to  them 
by  any  discoveries  of  the  extent  of  the  universe,  but 
is  as  poor  when  cataloguing  the  resolved  nebula  of 
Orion  as  when  measuring  the  angles  of  an  acre.  But 
the  Republic  of  Plato,  by  these  expansions,  may  be 
said  to  require,  and  so  to  anticipate,  the  astronomy 
of  Laplace.  The  expansions  are  organic.  The  mind 
does  not  create  what  it  perceives,  any  more  than  the 
eye  creates  the  rose.  In  ascribing  to  Plato  the  merit 
of  announcing  them,  we  only  say,  Here  was  a  more 
complete  man,  who  could  apply  to  nature  the  whole 
scale  of  the  senses,  the  understanding,  and  the  reason. 
These  expansions  or  extensions  consist  in  continuing 
the  spiritual  sight  where  the  horizon  falls  on  our 
natural  vision,  and  by  this  second  sight  discovering 


PLATO:  NEW  READINGS.  69 

the  long  lines  of  law  which  shoot  in  every  direction. 
Everywhere  he  stands  on  a  path  which  has  no  end, 
but  runs  continuously  round  the  universe.  There 
fore,  every  word  becomes  an  exponent  of  nature. 
Whatever  he  looks  upon  discloses  a  second  sense  and 
ulterior  senses.  His  perception  of  the  generation  of 
contraries,  of  death  out  of  life  and  life  out  of  death, 
—  that  law  by  which,  in  nature,  decomposition  is 
recomposition,  and  putrefaction  and  cholera  are  only 
signals  of  a  new  creation ;  his  discernment  of  the 
little  in  the  large  and  the  large  in  the  small ;  study 
ing  the  State  in  the  citizen  and  the  citizen  in  the 
State ;  and  leaving  it  doubtful  whether  he  exhibited 
the  Republic  as  an  allegory  on  the  education  of  the 
private  soul ;  his  beautiful  definitions  of  ideas,  of 
time,  of  form,  of  figure,  of  the  line,  sometimes  hypo- 
thetically  given,  as  his  defining  of  virtue,  courage, 
justice,  temperance;  his  love  of  the  apologue,  and 
his  apologues  themselves ;  the  cave  of  Trophonius ; 
the  ring  of  Gyges ;  the  charioteer  and  two  horses ; 
the  golden,  silver,  brass,  and  iron  temperaments; 
Theuth  and  Thamus ;  and  the  visions  of  Hades  and 
the  Fates  —  fables  which  have  imprinted  themselves 
in  the  human  memory  like  the  signs  of  the  zodiac ; 
his  soliform  eye  and  his  boniform  soul ;  his  doctrine 
of  assimilation ;  his  doctrine  of  reminiscence ;  his 
clear  vision  of  the  laws  of  return,  or  reaction,  which 
secure  instant  justice  throughout  the  universe,  in 
stanced  everywhere,  but  specially  in  the  doctrine, 
"  What  comes  from  God  to  us  returns  from  us  to 
God,"  and  in  Socrates1  belief  that  the  laws  below  are 
sisters  of  the  laws  above. 


70  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

More  striking  examples  are  his  moral  conclusions. 
Plato  affirms  the  coincidence  of  science  and  virtue ; 
for  vice  can  never  know  itself  and  virtue ;  but  virtue 
knows  both  itself  and  vice.  The  eye  attested  that 
justice  was  best  as  long  as  it  was  profitable ;  Plato 
affirms  that  it  is  profitable  throughout ;  that  the  profit 
is  intrinsic,  though  the  just  conceal  his  justice  from 
gods  and  men;  that  it  is  better  to  suffer  injustice 
than  to  do  it ;  that  the  sinner  ought  to  covet  punish 
ment  ;  that  the  lie  was  more  hurtful  than  homicide  ; 
and  that  ignorance,  or  the  involuntary  lie,  was  more 
calamitous  than  involuntary  homicide  ;  that  the  soul 
is  unwillingly  deprived  of  true  opinions,  and  that  no 
man  sins  willingly ;  that  the  order  or  proceeding  of 
nature  was  from  the  mind  to  the  body ;  and,  though 
a  sound  body  cannot  restore  an  unsound  mind,  yet 
a  good  soul  can,  by  its  virtue,  render  the  body  the 
best  possible.  The  intelligent  Kave  a  right  over  the 
ignorant,  namely,  the  right  of  instructing  them. 
The  right  punishment  of  one  out  of  tune  is  to  make 
him  play  in  tune ;  the  fine  which  the  good,  refusing 
to  govern,  ought  to  pay,  is,  to  be  governed  by  a 
worse  man ;  that  his  guards  shall  not  handle  gold 
and  silver,  but  shall  be  instructed  that  there  is  gold 
and  silver  in  their  souls,  which  will  make  men  will 
ing  to  give  them  everything  which  they  need. 

This  second  sight  explains  the  stress  laid  on  geom 
etry.  He  saw  that  the  globe  of  earth  was  not  more 
lawful  and  precise  than  was  the  supersensible ;  that 
a  celestial  geometry  was  in  place  there,  as  a  logic  of 
lines  and  angles  here  below ;  that  the  world  was 
throughout  mathematical ;  the  proportions  are  con- 


PLA  TO  :   NE  W  READINGS.  7 1 

stant  of  oxygen,  azote,  and  lime ;  there  is  just  so 
much  water,  and  slate,  and  magnesia;  not  less  are 
the  proportions  constant  of  the  moral  elements. 

This  eldest  Goethe,  hating  varnish  and  falsehood, 
delighted  in  revealing  the  real  at  the  base  of  the  acci 
dental  ;  in  discovering  connection,  continuity,  and 
representation  everywhere ;  hating  insulation ;  and 
appears  like  the  god  of  wealth  among  the  cabins  of 
vagabonds,  opening  power  and  capability  in  every 
thing  he  touches.  Ethical  science  was  new  and  va 
cant  when  Plato  could  write  thus:  "Of  all  whose 
arguments  are  left  to  the  men  of  the  present  time,  no 
one  has  ever  yet  condemned  injustice  or  praised 
justice,  otherwise  than  as  respects  the  repute,  honors, 
and  emoluments  arising  therefrom  ;  while,  as  respects 
either  of  them  in  itself,  and  subsisting  by  its  own 
power  in  the  soul  of  the  possessor,  and  concealed 
both  from  gods  and  men,  no  one  has  yet  sufficiently 
investigated,  either  in  poetry  or  prose  writings,  — 
how,  namely,  that  the  one  is  the  greatest  of  all  the 
evils  that  the  soul  has  within  it,  and  justice  the 
greatest  good." 

His  definition  of  ideas,  as  what  is  simple,  per 
manent,  uniform,  and  self-existent,  forever  discrimi 
nating  them  from  the  notions  of  the  understanding, 
marks  an  era  in  the  world.  He  was  born  to  behold 
the  self-evolving  power  of  spirit,  endless  generator  of 
new  ends ;  a  power  which  is  the  key  at  once  to  the 
centrality  and  the  evanescence  of  things.  Plato  is  so 
centred  that  he  can  well  spare  all  his  dogmas.  Thus 
the  fact  of  knowledge  and  ideas  reveals  to  him  the 
fact  of  eternity ;  and  the  doctrine  of  reminiscence  he 


72  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

offers  as  the  most  probable  particular  explication. 
Call  that  fanciful  —  it  matters  not :  the  connection 
between  our  knowledge  and  the  abyss  of  being  is 
still  real,  and  the  explication  must  be  not  less 
magnificent. 

He  has  indicated  every  eminent  point  in  specula 
tion.  He  wrote  on  the  scale  of  the  mind  itself,  so 
that  all  things  have  symmetry  in  his  tablet.  He  put 
in  all  the  past  without  weariness,  and  descended 
into  detail  with  a  courage  like  that  he  witnessed  in 
nature.  One  would  say  that  his  forerunners  had 
mapped  out  each  a  farm,  or  a  district,  or  an  island, 
in  intellectual  geography,  but  that  Plato  first  drew 
the  sphere.  He  domesticates  the  soul  in  nature: 
man  is  the  microcosm.  All  the  circles  of  the  visible 
heaven  represent  as  many  circles  in  the  rational  soul. 
There  is  no  lawless  particle,  and  there  is  nothing 
casual  in  the  action  of  the  human  mind.  The  names 
of  things,  too,  are  fatal,  following  the  nature  of 
things.  All  the  gods  of  the  Pantheon  are,  by  their 
names,  significant  of  a  profound  sense.  The  gods 
are  the  ideas.  Pan  is  speech,  or  manifestation ; 
Saturn,  the  contemplative ;  Jove,  the  regal  soul ;  and 
Mars,  passion.  Venus  is  proportion;  Calliope,  the 
soul  of  the  world ;  Aglaia,  intellectual  illustration. 

These  thoughts,  in  sparkles  of  light,  had  appeared 
often  to  pious  and  to  poetic  souls  ;  but  this  well-bred, 
all-knowing  Greek  geometer  comes  with  command, 
gathers  them  all  up  into  rank  and  gradation,  the 
Euclid  of  holiness,  and  marries  the  two  parts  of 
nature.  Before  all  men,  he  saw  the  intellectual 


PLA  TO  :  NE  W  HEADINGS.  73 

values  of  the  moral  sentiment.  He  describes  his  own 
ideal  when  he  paints  in  Timaeus  a  god  leading  things 
from  disorder  into  order.  He  kindled  a  fire  so  truly 
in  the  centre  that  we  see  the  sphere  illuminated, 
and  can  distinguish  poles,  equator,  and  lines  of  lati 
tude,  every  arc  and  node ;  a  theory  so  averaged,  so 
modulated,  that  you  would  say  the  winds  of  ages 
had  swept  through  this  rhythmic  structure,  and  not 
that  it  was  the  brief  extempore  blotting  of  one  short 
lived  scribe.  Hence  it  has  happened  that  a  very 
well-marked  class  of  souls,  namely,  those  who  de 
light  in  giving  a  spiritual,  that  is,  an  ethico-intel- 
lectual  expression  to  every  truth,  by  exhibiting  an 
ulterior  end  which  is  yet  legitimate  to  it,  are  said  to 
Platonize.  Thus,  Michel  Angelo  is  a  Platonist  in 
his  sonnets.  Shakspeare  is  a  Platonist  when  he 
writes,  "Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean,  but 
nature  makes  that  mean,11  or, 

"  He  that  can  endure 
To  follow  with  allegiance  a  fallen  lord 
Does  conquer  him  that  did  his  master  conquer, 
And  earns  a  place  in  the  story." 

Hamlet  is  a  pure  Platonist,  and  'tis  the  magnitude 
only  of  Shakspeare's  proper  genius  that  hinders  him 
from  being  classed  as  the  most  eminent  of  this 
school.  Swedenborg,  throughout  his  prose  poem  of 
"  Conjugal  Love,"  is  a  Platonist. 

His  subtlety  commended  him  to  men  of  thought. 
The  secret  of  his  popular  success  is  the  moral  aim 
which  endeared  him  to  mankind.  "Intellect,"  he 
said,  "is  king  of  heaven  and  of  earth;"  but  in 


74  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Plato,  intellect  is  always  moral.  His  writings  have 
also  the  sempiternal  youth  of  poetry.  For  their 
arguments,  most  of  them,  might  have  been  couched 
in  sonnets ;  and  poetry  has  never  soared  higher  than 
in  the  Timasus  and  the  Phoedrus.  As  the  poet,  too, 
he  is  only  contemplative.  He  did  not,  like  Pythag 
oras,  break  himself  with  an  institution.  All  his 
painting  in  the  Republic  must  be  esteemed  mythical, 
with  intent  to  bring  out,  sometimes  in  violent  colors, 
his  thought.  You  cannot  institute,  without  peril  of 
charlatanism. 

It  was  a  high  scheme,  his  absolute  privilege  for 
the  best  (which,  to  make  emphatic,  he  expressed  by 
community  of  women),  as  the  premium  which  he 
would  set  on  grandeur.  There  shall  be  exempts  of 
two  kinds :  first,  those  who  by  demerit  have  put 
themselves  below  protection  —  outlaws  ;  and,  sec 
ondly,  those  who  by  eminence  of  nature  and  desert 
are  out  of  the  reach  of  your  rewards  :  let  such  be  free 
of  the  city,  and  above  the  law.  We  confide  them  to 
themselves :  let  them  do  with  us  as  they  will.  Let 
none  presume  to  measure  the  irregularities  of  Michel 
Angelo  and  Socrates  by  village  scales. 

In  his  eighth  book  of  the  Republic  he  throws  a 
little  mathematical  dust  in  our  eyes.  I  am  sorry  to 
see  him,  after  such  noble  superiorities,  permitting 
the  lie  to  governors.  Plato  plays  Providence  a  little 
with  the  baser  sort,  as  people  allow  themselves  with 
their  dogs  and  cats. 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,   THE   MYSTIC 


(75) 


SWEDENBORG. 


SWEDENBORG  ;   OR,    THE  MYSTIC.      77 

III. 

SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE    MYSTIC. 


AMONG  eminent  persons,  those  who  are  most  dear 
to  men  are  not  of  the  class  which  the  economist 
calls  producers  :  they  have  nothing  in  their  hands ; 
they  have  not  cultivated  corn  nor  made  bread ;  they 
have  not  led  out  a  colony  nor  invented  a  loom.  A 
higher  class,  in  the  estimation  and  love  of  this  city- 
building,  market-going  race  of  mankind,  are  the 
poets,  who,  from  the  intellectual  kingdom,  feed  the 
thought  and  imagination  with  ideas  and  pictures 
which  raise  men  out  of  the  world  of  corn  and  money, 
and  console  them  for  the  short-comings  of  the  day 
and  the  meannesses  of  labor  and  traffic.  Then,  also, 
the  philosopher  has  his  value,  who  flatters  the  intel 
lect  of  this  laborer,  by  engaging  him  with  subtleties 
which  instruct  him  in  new  faculties.  Others  may 
build  cities ;  he  is  to  understand  them,  and  keep 
them  in  awe.  But  there  is  a  class  who  lead  us  into 
another  region  —  the  world  of  morals,  or  of  will. 
What  is  singular  about  this  region  of  thought  is  its 
claim.  Wherever  the  sentiment  of  right  comes  in, 
it  takes  precedence  of  everything  else.  For  other 
things,  I  make  poetry  of  them ;  but  the  moral  senti 
ment  makes  poetry  of  me. 


78  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  he  would  render 
the  greatest  service  to  modern  criticism  who  shall 
draw  the  line  of  relation  that  subsists  between  Shak- 
speare  and  Swedenborg.  The  human  mind  stands 
ever  in  perplexity,  demanding  intellect,  demanding 
sanctity,  impatient  equally  of  each  without  the  other. 
The  reconciler  has  not  yet  appeared.  If  we  tire  of 
the  saints,  Shakspeare  is  our  city  of  refuge.  Yet  the 
instincts  presently  teach  that  the  problem  of  essence 
must  take  precedence  of  all  others  —  the  questions 
of  Whence?  What?  and  Whither?  and  the  solution 
of  these  must  be  in  a  life,  and  not  in  a  book.  A 
drama  or  poem  is  a  proximate  or  oblique  reply ;  but 
Moses,  Menu,  Jesus,  work  directly  on  this  problem. 
The  atmosphere  of  moral  sentiment  is  a  region  of 
grandeur  which  reduces  all  material  magnificence  to 
toys,  yet  opens  to  every  wretch  that  has  reason  the 
doors  of  the  universe.  Almost  with  a  fierce  haste  it 
lays  its  empire  on  the  man.  In  the  language  of  the 
Koran,  "God  said,  The  heaven  and  the  earth,  and 
all  that  is  between  them,  think  ye  that  we  created 
them  in  jest,  and  that  ye  shall  not  return  to  us?" 
It  is  the  kingdom  of  the  will,  and  by  inspiring  the 
will,  which  is  the  seat  of  personality,  seems  to  con 
vert  the  universe  into  a  person  : 

"The  realms  of  being  to  no  other  bow, 
Not  only  all  are  thine,  but  all  are  Thou." 

All  men  are  commanded  by  the  saint.  The  Koran 
makes  a  distinct  class  of  those  who  are  by  nature 
good,  and  whose  goodness  has  an  influence  on  others, 
and  pronounces  this  class  to  be  the  aim  of  creation ; 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       79 

the  other  classes  are  admitted  to  the  feast  of  being, 
only  as  following  in  the  train  of  this.  And  the 
Persian  poet  exclaims  to  a  soul  of  this  kind : 

"Go  boldly  forth,  and  feast  on  being's  banquet; 
Thou  art  the  called  —  the  rest  admitted  with  thee." 

The  privilege  of  this  caste  is  an  access  to  the 
secrets  and  structure  of  nature,  by  some  higher 
method  than  by  experience.  In  common  parlance, 
what  one  man  is  said  to  learn  by  experience,  a  man 
of  extraordinary  sagacity  is  said,  without  experience, 
to  divine.  The  Arabians  say  that  Abul  Khain,  the 
mystic,  and  Abu  Ali  Seena,  the  philosopher,  con 
ferred  together;  and  on  parting  the  philosopher 
said,  "All  that  he  sees,  I  know;  "  and  the  mystic 
said,  "  All  that  he  knows,  I  see."  If  one  should  ask 
the  reason  of  this  intuition,  the  solution  would  lead 
us  into  that  property  which  Plato  denoted  as  Remi 
niscence,  and  which  is  implied  by  the  Bramins  in  the 
tenet  of  Transmigration.  The  soul  having  been  often 
born,  or,  as  the  Hindoos  say,  "travelling  the  path 
of  existence  through  thousands  of  births,11  having 
beheld  the  things  which  are  here,  those  which  are  in 
heaven,  and  those  which  are  beneath,  there  is  nothing 
of  which  she  has  not  gained  the  knowledge ;  no 
wonder  that  she  is  able  to  recollect,  in  regard  to  any 
one  thing,  what  formerly  she  knew.  "For  all 
things  in  nature  being  linked  and  related,  and  the 
soul  having  heretofore  known  all,  nothing  hinders 
but  that  any  man  who  has  recalled  to  mind,  or, 
according  to  the  common  phrase,  has  learned,  one 
thing  only  should  of  himself  recover  all  his  ancient 


So  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

knowledge,  and  find  out  again  all  the  rest,  if  he  have 
but  courage,  and  faint  not  in  the  midst  of  his  re 
searches.  For  inquiry  and  learning  is  reminiscence 
all."  How  much  more,  if  he  that  inquires  be  a  holy 
and  godlike  soul !  For,  by  being  assimilated  to  the 
original  soul,  by  whom,  and  after  whom,  all  things 
subsist,  the  soul  of  man  does  then  easily  flow  into  all 
things,  and  all  things  flow  into  it ;  they  mix  ;  and  he  is 
present  and  sympathetic  with  their  structure  and  law. 
This  path  is  difficult,  secret,  and  beset  with  terror. 
The  ancients  call  it  ecstasy  or  absence — a  getting 
out  of  their  bodies  to  think.  All  religious  history 
contains  traces  of  the  trance  of  saints  —  a  beatitude, 
but  without  any  sign  of  joy,  earnest,  solitary,  even 
sad;  "the  flight,"  Plotinus  called  it,  "  of  the  alone 
to  the  alone ;  "  Mw^<r/f,  the  closing  of  the  eyes,  — 
whence  our  word,  Mystic.  The  trances  of  Socrates, 
Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Behin2n,/Bunyan,  Fox,  Pascal, 
Guion,  Swedenborg,  will  readily  come  to  mind.  But 
what  as  readily  comes  to  mind  is  the  accompani 
ment  of  disease.  This  beatitude  comes  in  terror, 
and  with  shocks  to  the  mind  of  the  receiver.  "  It 
o'erinforms  the  tenement  of  clay,'1  and  drives  the 
man  mad ;  or  gives  a  certain  violent  bias,  which 
taints  his  judgment.  In  the  chief  examples  of  re 
ligious  illumination,  somewhat  morbid  has  mingled, 
in  spite  of  the  unquestionable  increase  of  mental 
power.  Must  the  highest  good  drag  after  it  a  quality 
which  neutralizes  and  discredits  it  ?  — 

"  Indeed,  it  takes 

From  our  achievements,  when  performed  at  height, 
The  pith  and  marrow  of  our  attribute." 


SIVEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       Si 

Shall  we  say  that  the  economical  mother  disburses 
so  much  earth  and  so  much  fire,  by  weight  and  metre, 
to  make  a  man,  and  will  not  add  a  pennyweight, 
though  a  nation  is  perishing  for  a  leader?  There 
fore,  the  men  of  God  purchased  their  science  by  folly 
or  pain.  If  you  will  have  pure  carbon,  carbuncle,  or 
diamond  to  make  the  brain  transparent,  the  trunk 
and  organs  shall  be  so  much  the  grosser :  instead  of 
porcelain,  they  are  potters  earth,  clay,  or  mud. 

In  modern  times,  no  such  remarkable  example  of 
this  introverted  mind  has  occurred  as  in  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  born  in  Stockholm  in  1688.  This 
man,  who  appeared  to  his  contemporaries  a  visionary 
and  elixir  of  moonbeams,  no  doubt  led  the  most  real 
life  of  any  man  then  in  the  world ;  and  now,  when 
the  royal  and  ducal  Frederics,  Christians,  and  Bruns- 
wicks  of  that  day  have  slid  into  oblivion,  he  begins 
to  spread  himself  into  the  minds  of  thousands.  As 
happens  in  great  men,  he  seemed,  by  the  variety  and 
amount  of  his  powers,  to  be  a  composition  of  several 
persons  —  like  the  giant  fruits  which  are  matured  in 
gardens  by  the  union  of  four  or  five  single  blossoms. 
His  frame  is  on  a  larger  scale,  and  possesses  the  ad 
vantages  of  size.  As  it  is  easier  to  see  the  reflection 
of  the  great  sphere  in  large  globes,  though  defaced 
by  some  crack  or  blemish,  than  in  drops  of  water,  so 
men  of  large  calibre,  though  with  some  eccentricity 
or  madness,  like  Pascal  or  Newton,  help  us  more 
than  balanced  mediocre  minds. 

His  youth  and  training  could  not  fail  to  be  extraor 
dinary.  Such  a  boy  could  not  whistle  or  dance,  but 
goes  grubbing  into  mines  and  mountains,  prying 


82  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

into  chemistry  and  optics,  physiology,  mathematics, 
and  astronomy,  to  find  images  fit  for  the  measure  of 
his  versatile  and  capacious  brain.  He  was  a  scholar 
from  a  child,  and  was  educated  at  Upsala.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-eight  he  was  made  Assessor  of  the 
Board  of  Mines,  by  Charles  XII.  In  1716  he  left 
home  for  four  years,  and  visited  the  universities  of 
England,  Holland,  France,  and  Germany.  He  per 
formed  a  notable  feat  of  engineering  in  1718,  at  the 
siege  of  Frederikshald,  by  hauling  two  galleys,  five 
boats,  and  a  sloop  some  fourteen  English  miles 
overland,  for  the  royal  service.  In  1721  he  journeyed 
over  Europe,  to  examine  mines  and  smelting- works. 
He  published  in  1716  his  "  Daedalus  Hyperboreus," 
and  from  this  time,  for  the  next  thirty  years,  was 
employed  in  the  composition  and  publication  of  his 
scientific  works.  With  the  like  force,  he  threw  him 
self  into  theology.  In  1743, 'when  he  was  fifty-four 
years  old,  what  is  called  his  illumination  began.  All 
his  metallurgy  and  transportation  of  ships  overland 
was  absorbed  into  this  ecstasy.  He  ceased  to  pub 
lish  any  more  scientific  books,  withdrew  from  his 
practical  labors,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  writing 
and  publication  of  his  voluminous  theological  works, 
which  were  printed  at  his  own  expense,  or  at  that  of 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  or  other  prince,  at  Dresden, 
Leipsic,  London,  or  Amsterdam.  Later,  he  resigned 
his  office  -of  Assessor;  the  salary  attached  to  this 
office  continued  to  be  paid  to  him  during  his  life. 
His  duties  had  brought  him  into  intimate  acquaintance 
with  King  Charles  XII.,  by  whom  he  was  much  con 
sulted  and  honored.  The  like  favor  was  continued 


SWEDENBORG ;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.      83 

to  him  by  his  successor.  At  the  Diet  of  1751, 
Count  Hopken  says  the  most  solid  memorials  on 
finance  were  from  his  pen.  In  Sweden,  he  appears  to 
have  attracted  a  marked  regard.  His  rare  science 
and  practical  skill,  and  the  added  fame  of  second 
sight  and  extraordinary  religious  knowledge  and  gifts, 
drew  to  him  queens,  nobles,  clergy,  ship-masters,  and 
people  about  the  ports  through  which  he  was  wont  to 
pass  in  his  many  voyages.  The  clergy  interfered  a 
little  with  the  importation  and  publication  of  his  re 
ligious  works ;  but  he  seems  to  have  kept  the 
friendship  of  men  in  power.  He  was  never  married. 
He  had  great  modesty  and  gentleness  of  bearing. 
His  habits  were  simple  ;  he  lived  on  bread,  milk,  and 
vegetables ;  he  lived  in  a  house  situated  in  a  large 
garden ;  he  went  several  times  to  England,  where 
he  does  not  seem  to.  have  attracted  any  attention 
whatever  from  the  learned  or  the  eminent ;  and  died 
at  London,  March  29,  1772,  of  apoplexy,  in  his 
eighty-fifth  year.  He  is  described,  when  in  London, 
as  a  man  of  a  quiet,  clerical  habit,  not  averse  to  tea 
and  coffee,  and  kind  to  children.  He  wore  a  sword 
when  in  full  velvet  dress,  and  whenever  he  walked 
out  carried  a  gold-headed  cane.  There  is  a  common 
portrait  of  him  in  antique  coat  and  wig,  but  the  face 
has  a  wandering  or  vacant  air. 

The  genius  which  was  to  penetrate  the  science  of 
the  age  with  a  far  more  subtle  science,  to  pass  the 
bounds  of  space  and  time,  venture  into  the  dim 
spirit-realm  and  attempt  to  establish  a  new  religion 
in  the  world,  began  its  lessons  in  quarries  and 
forges,  in  the  smelting-pot  and  crucible,  in  ship- 


84  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

yards  and  dissecting-rooms.  No  one  man  is  perhaps 
able  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  his  works  on  so  many 
subjects.  One  is  glad  to  learn  that  his  books  on 
mines  and  metals  are  held  in  the  highest  esteem  by 
those  who  understand  these  matters.  It  seems  that 
he  anticipated  much  science  in  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  ;  anticipated,  in  astronomy,  the  discovery  of  the 
seventh  planet  —  but,  unhappily,  not  also  of  the 
eighth ;  anticipated  the  views  of  modern  astronomy 
in  regard  to  the  generation  of  earths  by  the  sun ;  in 
magnetism,  some  important  experiments  and  conclu 
sions  of  later  students ;  in  chemistry,  the  atomic 
theory;  in  anatomy,  the  discoveries  of  Schlichting, 
Monro,  and  Wilson;  and  first  demonstrated  the 
office  of  the  lungs.  His  excellent  English  editor 
magnanimously  lays  no  stress  on  his  discoveries, 
since  he  was  too  great  to  care  to  be  original ;  and 
we  are  to  judge  by  what  he'  can  spare  of  what 
remains. 

A  colossal  soul,  he  lies  vast  abroad  on  his  times, 
uncomprehended  by  them,  and  requires  a  long  focal 
distance  to  be  seen ;  suggests,  as  Aristotle,  Bacon, 
Selden,  Humboldt,  that  a  certain  vastness  of  learn 
ing,  or  quasi  omnipresence  of  the  human  soul  in 
nature,  is  possible.  His  superb  speculation,  as  from 
a  tower,  over  nature  and  arts,  without  ever  losing 
sight  of  the  texture  and  sequence  of  things,  almost 
realizes  his  own  picture,  in  the  *'  Principia,"  of  the 
original  integrity  of  man.  Over  and  above  the 
merit  of  his  particular  discoveries  is  the  capital  merit 
of  his  self-equality.  A  drop  of  water  has  the  proper 
ties  of  the  sea,  but  cannot  exhibit  a  storm.  There  is 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.      85 

beauty  of  a  concert,  as  well  as  of  a  flute  ;  strength  of  a 
host,  as  well  as  of  a  hero ;  and  in  Swedenborg  those 
who  are  best  acquainted  with  modern  books  will  most 
admire  the  merit  of  mass.  One  of  the  missouriums 
and  mastodons  of  literature,  he  is  not  to  be  meas 
ured  by  whole  colleges  of  ordinary  scholars.  His 
stalwart  presence  would  flutter  the  gowns  of  a  uni 
versity.  Our  books  are  false  by  being  fragmentary ; 
thair  sentences  are  bon-mots,  and  not  parts  of  natural 
discourse  ;  childish  expressions  of  surprise  or  pleasure 
in  nature  ;  or,  worse,  owing  a  brief  notoriety  to  their 
petulance  or  aversion  from  the  order  of  nature  — 
being  some  curiosity  or  oddity,  designedly  not  in  har 
mony  with  nature,  and  purposely  framed  to  excite  sur 
prise,  as  jugglers  do  by  concealing  their  means.  But 
Swedenborg  is  systematic,  and  respective  of  the  world 
in  every  sentence  ;  all  the  means  are  orderly  given  ;  his 
faculties  work  with  astronomic  punctuality,  and  this 
admirable  writing  is  pure  from  all  pertness  or  egotism. 
Swedenborg  was  born  into  an  atmosphere  of 
great  ideas.  'Tis  hard  to  say  what  was  his  own ; 
yet  his  life  was  dignified  by  noblest  pictures  of  the 
universe.  The  robust  Aristotelian  method,  with  its 
breadth  and  adequateness,  shaming  our  sterile  and 
linear  logic  by  its  genial  radiation,  conversant  with 
series  and  degree,  with  effects  and  ends,  skilful  to 
discriminate  power  from  form,  essence  from  accident, 
and  opening  by  its  terminology  and  definition  high 
roads  into  nature,  had  trained  a  race  of  athletic 
philosophers.  Harvey  had  shown  the  circulation  of 
the  blood ;  Gilbert  had  shown  that  the  earth  was  a 
magnet ;  Descartes,  taught  by  Gilbert's  magnet, 


86  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

with  its  vortex,  spiral,  and  polarity,  had  filled  Europe 
with  the  leading  thought  of  vortical  motion,  as  the 
secret  of  nature.  Newton,  in  the  year  in  which 
Swedenborg  was  born,  published  the  "  Principia," 
and  established  the  universal  gravity.  Malpighi,  fol 
lowing  the  high  doctrines  of  Hippocrates,  Leucippus, 
and  Lucretius,  had  given  emphasis  to  the  dogma  that 
nature  works  in  leasts  —  ' '  tota  in  ininitnis  existit 
natural  Unrivalled  dissectors,  Swammerdam, 
Leuwenhoek,  Winslow,  Eustachius,  Heister,  Vesalius, 
Boerhaave,  had  left  nothing  for  scalpel  or  microscope 
to  reveal  in  human  or  comparative  anatomy;  Lin 
naeus,  his  contemporary,  was  affirming,  in  his  beauti 
ful  science,  "  Nature  is  always  like  herself;  "  and, 
lastly,  the  nobility  of  method,  the  largest  application 
of  principles,  had  been  exhibited  by  Leibnitz  and 
Christian  Wolff,  in  cosmology;  whilst  Locke  and 
Grotius  had  drawn  the  moral  a/gument.  What  was 
left  for  a  genius  of  the  largest  calibre,  but  to  go  over 
their  ground,  and  verify  and  unite?  It  is  easy  to 
see,  in  these  minds,  the  origin  of  Swedenborg's  stud 
ies,  and  the  suggestion  of  his  problems.  He  had  a 
capacity  to  entertain  and  vivify  these  volumes  of 
thought.  Yet  the  proximity  of  these  geniuses,  one 
or  other  of  whom  had  introduced  all  his  leading 
ideas,  makes  Swedenborg  another  example  of  the 
difficulty,  even  in  a  highly  fertile  genius,  of  proving 
originality,  the  first  birth  and  annunciation  of  one  of 
the  laws  of  nature. 

He  named  his  favorite  views,  the  doctrine  of  Forms, 
the  doctrine  of  Series  and  Degrees,  the  doctrines  of 
Influx,  the  doctrine  of  Correspondence.  His  state- 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,     THE  MYSTIC.      87 

ment  of  these  doctrines  deserves  to  be  studied  in  his 
books.  Not  every  man  can  read  them,  but  they  will 
reward  him  who  can.  His  theologic  works  are  valu 
able  to  illustrate  these.  His  writings  would  be  a 
sufficient  library  to  a  lonely  and  athletic  student ; 
and  the  « '  Economy  of  the  Animal  Kingdom  "  is  one 
of  those  books  which,  by  the  sustained  dignity  of 
thinking,  is  an  honor  to  the  human  race.  He  had 
studied  spars  and  metals  to  some  purpose.  His  va 
ried  and  solid  knowledge  makes  his  style  lustrous 
with  points  and  shooting  spicula  of  thought,  and  re 
sembling  one  of  those  winter  mornings  when  the  air 
sparkles  with  crystals.  The  grandeur  of  the  topics 
makes  the  grandeur  of  the  style.  He  was  apt  for 
cosmology,  because  of  that  native  perception  of  iden 
tity  which  made  mere  size  of  no  account  to  him. 
In  the  atom  of  magnetic  iron  he  saw  the  quality 
which  would  generate  the  spiral  motion  of  sun  and 
planet. 

The  thoughts  in  which  he  lived  were  the  univer 
sality  of  each  law  in  nature  ;  the  Platonic  doctrine  of 
the  scale  or  degrees ;  the  version  or  conversion  of 
each  into  other,  and  so  the  correspondence  of  all  the 
parts ;  the  fine  secret  that  little  explains  large,  and 
large,  little ;  the  centrality  of  man  in  nature,  and  the 
connection  that  subsists  throughout  all  things :  he 
saw  that  the  human  body  was  strictly  universal,  or 
an  instrument  through  which  the  soul  feeds  and  is 
fed  by  the  whole  of  matter ;  so  that  he  held,  in  exact 
antagonism  to  the  skeptics,  that  ««  The  wiser  a  man 
is,  the  more  will  he  be  a  worshipper  of  the  Deity." 
In  short,  he  was  a  believer  in  the  Identity-philoso- 


88  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

phy,  which  he  held  not  idly,  as  the  dreamers  of  Ber 
lin  or  Boston,  but  which  he  experimented  with  and 
established  through  years  of  labor,  with  the  heart 
and  strength  of  the  rudest  Viking  that  his  rough 
Sweden  ever  sent  to  battle. 

This  theory  dates  from  the  oldest  philosophers,  and 
derives  perhaps  its  best  illustration  from  the  newest.  It 
is  this  :  that  nature  iterates  her  means  perpetually  on 
successive  planes.  In  the  old  aphorism,  nature  is 
always  self -similar.  In  the  plant,  the  eye  or  germi- 
native  point  opens  to  a  leaf,  then  to  another  leaf,  with 
a  power  of  transforming  the  leaf  into  radicle,  stamen, 
pistil,  petal,  bract,  sepal,  or  seed.  The  whole  art 
of  the  plant  is  still  to  repeat  leaf  on  leaf  without  end, 
the  more  or  less  of  heat,  light,  moisture,  and  food 
determining  the  form  it  shall  assume.  In  the  ani 
mal,  nature  makes  a  vertebra,  or  a  spine  of  verte 
brae,  and  helps  herself  still  by  a  new  spine,  with 
a  limited  power  of  modifying  its  form,  —  spine 
on  spine,  to  the  end  of  the  world.  A  poetic  anato 
mist,  in  our  own  day,  teaches  that  a  snake,  being 
a  horizontal  line,  and  man,  being  an  erect  line, 
constitute  a  right  angle ;  and  between  the  lines 
of  this  mystical  quadrant  all  animated  beings 
find  their  place;  and  he  assumes  the  hair-worm, 
the  span-worm,  or  the  snake  as  the  type  or  predic 
tion  of  the  spine.  Manifestly,  at  the  end  of  the 
spine  nature  puts  out  smaller  spines,  as  arms ; 
at  the  end  of  the  arms,  new  spines,  as  hands ; 
at  the  other  end  she  repeats  the  process,  as 
legs  and  feet.  At  the  top  of  the  column  she  puts 
out  another  spine,  which  doubles  or  loops  itself 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.      89 

over,  as  a  span-worm,  into  a  ball,  and  forms  the 
skull,  with  extremities  again ;  the  hands  being  now 
the  upper  jaw,  the  feet  the  lower  jaw,  the  fingers  and 
toas  being  represented  this  time  by  upper  and  lower 
teeth.  This  new  spine  is  destined  to  high  uses.  It 
is  a  new  man  on  the  shoulders  of  the  last.  It  can 
almost  shed  its  trunk,  and  manage  to  live  alone  ac 
cording  to  the  Platonic  idea  in  the  Timasus.  Within 
it,  on  a  higher  plane,  all  that  was  done  in  the 
trunk  repeats  itself.  Nature  recites  her  lesson  once 
more  in  a  higher  mood.  The  mind  is  a  finer  body, 
and  resumes  its  functions  of  feeding,  digesting, 
absorbing,  excluding,  and  generating,  in  a  new  and 
ethereal  element.  Here,  in  the  brain,  is  all  the  process 
of  alimentation  repeated,  in  the  acquiring,  compar 
ing,  digesting,  and  assimilating  of  experience.  Here 
again  is  the  mystery  of  generation  repeated.  In  the 
brain  are  male  and  female  faculties  ;  here  is  marriage, 
here  is  fruit.  And  there  is  no  limit  to  this  ascending 
scale,  but  series  on  series.  Everything  at  the  end 
of  one  use  is  taken  up  into  the  next,  each  series  punc 
tually  repeating  every  organ  and  process  of  the 
last.  We  are  adapted  to  infinity.  We  are  hard 
to  please,  and  love  nothing  which  ends ;  and  in 
nature  is  no  end ;  but  everything,  at  the  end  of 
one  use,  is  lifted  into  a  superior,  and  the  ascent  of 
these  things  climbs  into  daemonic  and  celestial  na 
tures.  Creative  force,  like  a  musical  composer,  goes 
on  unweariedly  repeating  a  simple  air  or  theme, 
now  high,  now  low,  in  solo,  in  chorus,  ten  thousand 
times  reverberated,  till  it  fills  earth  and  heaven  with 
the  chant. 


90  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Gravitation,  as  explained  by  Newton,  is  good, 
but  grander  when  we  find  chemistry  only  an  ex 
tension  of  the  law  of  masses  into  particles,  and  that 
the  atomic  theory  shows  the  action  of  chemistry  to 
be  mechanical  also.  Metaphysics  shows  us  a  sort  oi 
gravitation,  operative  also  in  the  mental  phenomena  : 
and  the  terrible  tabulation  of  the  French  statists  brings 
every  piece  of  whim  and  humor  to  be  reducible  also 
to  exact  numerical  ratios.  If  one  man  in  twenty  thou 
sand,  or  in  thirty  thousand,  eats  shoes  or  marries 
his  grandmother,  then  in  every  twenty  thousand,  or 
thirty  thousand,  is  found  one  man  who  eats  shoes 
or  marries  his  grandmother.  What  we  call  gravita 
tion,  and  fancy  ultimate,  is  one  fork  of  a  mightier 
stream,  for  which  we  have  yet  no  name.  Astronomy 
is  excellent ;  but  it  must  come  up  into  life  to  have  its 
full  value,  and  not  remain  there  in  globes  and  spaces. 
The  globule  of  blood  gyrates  around  its  own  axis  in 
the  human  veins,  as  the  planef  in  the  sky ;  and  the 
circles  of  intellect  relate  to  those  of  the  heavens. 
Each  law  of  nature  has  the  like  universality ;  eating, 
sleep  or  hybernation,  rotation,  generation,  metamor 
phosis,  vortical  motion,  which  is  seen  in  eggs  as  in 
planets.  These  grand  rhymes  or  returns  in  nature  — 
the  dear,  best-known  face  startling  us  at  every  turn, 
under  a  mask  so  unexpected  that  we  think  it  the  face 
of  a  stranger,  and  carrying  up  the  semblance  into 
divine  forms  —  delighted  the  prophetic  eye  of  Swe- 
denborg;  and  he  must  be  reckoned  a  leader  in  that 
revolution  which,  by  giving  to  science  an  idea,  has 
given  to  an  aimless  accumulation  of  experiments, 
guidance  and  form  and  a  beating  heart. 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,     THE  MYSTIC.      91 

I  own,  with  some  regret,  that  his  printed  works 
amount  to  about  fifty  stout  octavos,  his  scientific 
works  being  about  half  of  the  whole  number;  and 
it  appears  that  a  mass  of  manuscript  still  unedited  re 
mains  in  the  royal  library  at  Stockholm.  The  scien 
tific  works  have  just  now  been  translated  into  English, 
in  an  excellent  edition. 

Swedenborg  printed  these  scientific  books  in  the 
ten  years  from  1734  to  1744,  and  they  remained 
from  that  time  neglected ;  and  now,  after  their  cen 
tury  is  complete,  he  has  at  last  found  a  pupil  in  Mr. 
Wilkinson,  in  London,  a  philosophic  critic,  with  a 
coequal  vigor  of  understanding  and  imagination  com 
parable  only  to  Lord  Bacon's,  who  has  produced  his 
master's  buried  books  to  the  day,  and  transferred 
them,  with  every  advantage,  from  their  forgotten 
Latin  into  English,  to  go  round  the  world  in  our 
commercial  and  conquering  tongue.  This  startling 
reappearance  of  Swedenborg,  after  a  hundred  years, 
in  his  pupil,  is  not  the  least  remarkable  fact  in  his 
history.  Aided,  it  is  said,  by  the  munificence  of  Mr. 
Clissold,  and  also  by  his  literary  skill,  this  piece  of 
poetic  justice  is  done.  The  admirable  preliminary 
discourses  with  which  Mr.  Wilkinson  has  enriched 
these  volumes  throw  all  the  contemporary  philoso 
phy  of  England  into  shade,  and  leave  me  nothing  to 
say  on  their  proper  grounds. 

The  ' '  Animal  Kingdom  "  is  a  book  of  wonderful 
merits.  It  was  written  with  the  highest  end —  to 
put  science  and  the  soul,  long  estranged  from  each 
other,  at  one  again.  It  was  an  anatomist's  account 
of  the  human  body,  in  the  highest  style  of  poetry. 


92  REPRESENTATIVE   MEN. 

Nothing  can  exceed  the  bold  and  brilliant  treatment 
of  a  subject  usually  so  dry  and  repulsive.  He  saw 
nature  «*  wreathing  through  an  everlasting  spiral,  with 
wheels  that  never  dry,  on  axes  that  never  creak,11 
and  sometimes  sought  ' '  to  uncover  those  secret  re 
cesses  where  nature  is  sitting  at  the  fires  in  the  depths 
of  her  laboratory ;  "  whilst  the  picture  comes  recom 
mended  by  the  hard  fidelity  with  which  it  is  based 
on  practical  anatomy.  It  is  remarkable  that  this 
sublime  genius  decides  peremptorily  for  the  analytic, 
against  the  synthetic  method ;  and,  in  a  book  whose 
genius  is  a  daring  poetic  synthesis,  claims  to  confine 
himself  to  a  rigid  experience. 

He  knows,  if  he  only,  the  flowing  of  nature,  and 
how  wise  was  that  old  answer  of  Amasis  to  him  who 
bade  him  drink  up  the  sea —  "Yes,  willingly,  if  you 
will  stop  the  rivers  that  flow  in.11  Few  knew  as  much 
about  nature  and  her  subtle  jnanners,  or  expressed 
more  subtly  her  goings.  He  thought  as  large  a 
demand  is  made  on  our  faith  by  nature  as  by  mira 
cles.  "  He  noted  that  in  her  proceeding  from  first 
principles  through  her  several  subordinations,  there 
was  no  state  through  which  she  did  not  pass,  as  if 
her  path  lay  through  all  things.1'  "  For  as  often  as 
she  betakes  herself  upward  from  visible  phenomena, 
or,  in  other  words,  withdraws  herself  inward,  she  in 
stantly,  as  it  were,  disappears,  while  no  one  knows 
what  has  become  of  her,  or  whither  she  is  gone ;  so 
that  it  is  necessary  to  take  science  as  a  guide  in  pur 
suing  her  steps." 

The  pursuing  the  inquiry  under  the  light  of  an  end 
or  final  cause  gives  wonderful  animation,  a  sort  of 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       93 

personality  to  the  whole  writing.  This  book  an 
nounces  his  favorite  dogmas.  The  ancient  doctrine 
of  Hippocrates,  that  the  brain  is  a  gland ;  and  of 
Leucippus,  that  the  atom  may  be  known  by  the 
mass ;  or  in  Plato,  the  macrocosm  by  the  micro 
cosm  ;  and  in  the  verses  of  Lucretius, — 

"  Ossa  videlicet  e  pauxillis  atque  minutis 
Ossibus  sic  et  de  pauxillis  atque  minutis 
Visceritms  viscus  gigni,  sanguenque  creari 
Sanguinis  inter  se  multis  coeuntibus  guttis  ; 
Ex  aurique  putat  micis  consistere  posse 
Aurum,  et  de  terris  terrain  concrescere  parvis ; 
Ignibus  ex  igneis,  humorem  humoribus  esse." 

LIB.  I.  835. 

"  The  principle  of  all  things,  entrails  made 
Of  smallest  entrails  ;  bone,  of  smallest  bone; 
Blood,  of  small  sanguine  drops  reduced  to  one ; 
Gold,  of  small  grains ;  earth,  of  small  sands  compacted ; 
Small  drops  to  water,  sparks  to  fire  contracted;" 

and  which  Malpighi  had  summed  in  his  maxim,  that 
"nature  exists  entire  in  leasts,"  —  is  a  favorite 
thought  of  Swedenborg.  "It  is  a  constant  law  of 
the  organic  body  that  large,  compound,  or  visible 
forms  exist  and  subsist  from  smaller,  simpler,  and 
ultimately  from  invisible  forms,  which  act  similarly  to 
the  larger  ones,  but  more  perfectly  and  more  univer 
sally  ;  and  the  least  forms  so  perfectly  and  universally 
as  to  involve  an  idea  representative  of  their  entire 
universe.11  The  unities  of  each  organ  are  so  many 
little  organs,  homogeneous  with  their  compound ;  the 
unities  of  the  tongue  are  little  tongues ;  those  of  the 
stomach,  little  stomachs;  those  of  the  heart  are  little 


94  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

hearts.  This  fruitful  idea  furnishes  a  key  to  every 
secret.  What  was  too  small  for  the  eye  to  dotect 
was  read  by  the  aggregates ;  what  was  too  large,  by 
the  units.  There  is  no  end  to  his  application  of  the 
thought.  "Hunger  is  an  aggregate  of  very  many 
little  hungers,  or  losses  of  blood  by  the  little  veins 
all  over  the  body."  It  is  a  key  to  his  theology, 
also.  "  Man  is  a  kind  of  very  minute  heaven,  cor 
responding  to  the  world  of  spirits  and  to  heaven. 
Every  particular  idea  of  man,  and  every  affaction, 
yea,  every  smallest  part  of  his  affection,  is  an  image 
and  effigy  of  him.  A  spirit  may  be  known  from  only 
a  single  thought.  God  is  the  grand  man.1' 

The  hardihood  and  thoroughness  of  his  study  of 
nature  required  a  theory  of  forms,  also.  "  Forms 
ascend  in  order  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  The 
lowest  form  is  angular,  or  the  terrestrial  and  cor 
poreal.  The  second  and  ne#  higher  form  is  the 
circular,  which  is  also  called  the  perpetual-angular, 
because  the  circumference  of  a  circle  is  a  perpetual 
angle.  The  form  above  this  is  the  spiral,  parent  and 
measure  of  circular  forms ;  its  diameters  are  not  rec 
tilinear,  but  variously  circular,  and  have  a  spherical 
surface  for  centre ;  therefore  it  is  called  the  perpetual- 
circular.  The  form  above  this  is  the  vortical,  or 
perpetual-^spiral ;  next,  the  perpetual-vortical,  or  celes 
tial  ;  last,  the  perpetual-celestial,  or  spiritual.11 

Was  it  strange  that  a  genius  so  bold  should  take 
the  last  step,  also,  —  conceive  that  he  might  attain  the 
science  of  all  sciences,  to  unlock  the  meaning  of  the 
world?  In  the  first  volume  of  the  "Animal  King 
dom,"  he  broaches  ths  subject  in  a  remarkable  note: 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       95 

"In  our  doctrine  of  Representations  and  Corre 
spondences,  we  shall  treat  of  both  these  symbolical 
and  typical  resemblances,  and  of  the  astonishing 
things  which  occur,  I  will  not  say  in  the  living  body 
only,  but  throughout  nature,  and  which  correspond 
so  entirely  to  supreme  and  spiritual  things  that  one 
would  swear  that  the  physical  world  was  purely  sym 
bolical  of  the  spiritual  world ;  insomuch  that  if  we 
choose  to  express  any  natural  truth  in  physical  and 
definite  vocal  terms,  and  to  convert  these  terms 
only  into  the  corresponding  and  spiritual  terms,  we 
shall  by  this  means  elicit  a  spiritual  truth,  or  theo 
logical  dogma,  in  place  of  the  physical  truth  or  pre 
cept  ;  although  no  mortal  would  have  predicted  that 
anything  of  the  kind  could  possibly  arise  by  bare 
literal  transposition ;  inasmuch  as  the  one  precept, 
considered  separately  from  the  other,  appears  to  have 
absolutely  no  relation  to  it.  I  intend,  hereafter,  to 
communicate  a  number  of  examples  of  such  corre 
spondences,  together  with  a  vocabulary  containing  the 
terms  of  spiritual  things,  as  well  as  of  the  physical 
things  for  which  they  are  to  be  substituted.  This 
symbolism  pervades  the  living  body." 

The  fact,  thus  explicitly  stated,  is  implied  in  all 
poetry,  in  allegory,  in  fable,  in  the  use  of  emblems, 
and  in  the  structure  of  language.  Plato  knew  of  it, 
as  is  evident  from  his  twice-bisected  line,  in  the 
sixth  book  of  the  Republic-  Lord  Bacon  had  found 
that  truth  and  nature  differed  only  as  seal  and  print ; 
and  he  instanced  some  physical  propositions,  with 
their  translation  into  a  moral  or  political  sense. 
Behmen,  and  all  mystics,  imply  this  law  in  their 


96  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

dark  riddle-writing.  The  poets,  in  as  far  as  they 
are  poets,  use  it ;  but  it  is  known  to  them  only  —  as 
the  magnet  was  known  for  ages  —  as  a  toy.  Sweden- 
borg  first  put  the  fact  into  a  detached  and  scientific 
statement,  because  it  was  habitually  present  to  him, 
and  never  not  seen.  It  was  involved,  as  we  ex 
plained  already,  in  the  doctrine  of  identity  and 
iteration,  because  the  mental  series  exactly  tallies 
with  the  material  series.  It  required  an  insight  that 
could  rank  things  in  order  and  series ;  or,  rather,  it 
required  such  Tightness  of  position  that  the  poles  of 
the  eye  should  coincide  with  the  axis  of  the  world. 
The  earth  had  fed  its  mankind  through  five  or  six 
millenniums,  and  they  had  sciences,  religions,  philos 
ophies  ;  and  yet  had  failed  to  see  the  correspondence 
of  meaning  between  every  part  and  every  other  part. 
And,  down  to  this  hour,  literature  has  no  book  in 
which  the  symbolism  of  tlyngs  is  scientifically 
opened.  One  would  say  that  as  soon  as  men  had 
the  first  hint  that  every  sensible  object  —  animal, 
rock,  river,  air,  nay,  space  and  time  —  subsists  not 
for  itself,  nor  finally  to  a  material  end,  but  as  a 
picture-language  to  tell  another  story  of  beings  and 
duties,  other  science  would  be  put  by,  and  a  science 
of  such  grand  presage  would  absorb  all  faculties; 
that  each  man  would  ask  of  all  objects  what  they 
mean :  Why  does  the  horizon  hold  me  fast,  with  my 
joy  and  grief,  in  this  centre  ?  Why  hear  I  the  same 
sense  from  countless  differing  voices,  and  read  one 
never  quite  expressed  fact  in  endless  picture-language? 
Yet,  whether  it  be  that  these  things  will  not  be  in 
tellectually  learned,  or  that  many  centuries  must 


SWEDENBORG ;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       97 

elaborate  and  compose  so  rare  and  opulent  a  soul,  — 
there  is  no  comet,  rock  stratum,  fossil,  fish,  quad 
ruped,  spider,  or  fungus  that,  for  itself,  does  not 
interest  more  scholars  and  classifiers  than  the  mean 
ing  and  upshot  of  the  frame  of  things. 

But  Swedenborg  was  not  content  with  the  culinary 
use  of  the  world.  In  his  fifty-fourth  year  these 
thoughts  held  him  fast,  and  his  profound  mind 
admitted  the  perilous  opinion,  too  frequent  in  relig 
ious  history,  that  he  was  an  abnormal  person,  to 
whom  was  granted  the  privilege  of  conversing  with 
angels  and  spirits ;  and  this  ecstasy  connected  itself 
with  just  this  office  of  explaining  the  moral  import  of 
the  sensible  world.  To  a  right  perception,  at  once 
broad  and  minute,  of  the  order  of  nature,  he  added 
the  comprehension  of  the  moral  laws  in  their  widest 
social  aspects ;  but  whatever  he  saw,  through  some 
excessive  determination  to  form  in  his  constitution 
he  saw  not  abstractly,  but  in  pictures,  heard  it  in 
dialogues,  constructed  it  in  events.  When  he  at 
tempted  to  announce  the  law  most  sanely,  he  was 
forced  to  couch  it  in  parable. 

Modern  psychology  offers  no  similar  example  of  a 
deranged  balance.  The  principal  powers  continued 
to  maintain  a  healthy  action ;  and  to  a  reader  who 
can  make  due  allowance  in  the  report  for  the 
reporter's  peculiarities,  the  results  are  still  instruc 
tive,  and  a  more  striking  testimony  to  the  sublime 
laws  he  announced  than  any  that  balanced  dulness 
could  afford.  He  attempts  to  give  some  account  of 
the  modus  of  the  new  state,  affirming  that  "his 
presence  in  the  spiritual  world  is  attended  with  a 


98  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

certain  separation,  but  only  as  to  the  intellectual  part 
of  his  mind,  not  as  to  the  will  part ;  "  and  he  affirms 
that  "he  sees,  with  the  internal  sight,  the  things 
that  are  in  another  life  more  clearly  than  he  sees 
the  things  which  are  here  in  the  world.1" 

Having  adopted  the  belief  that  certain  books  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  exact  allegories, 
or  written  in  the  angelic  and  ecstatic  mode,  he  em 
ployed  his  remaining  years  in  extricating  from  the 
literal  the  universal  sense.  He  had  borrowed  from 
Plato  the  fine  fable  of  "  a  most  ancient  people,  men 
better  than  we,  and  dwelling  nigher  to  the  gods ;  " 
and  Swedenborg  added  that  they  used  the  earth 
symbolically;  that  these,  when  they  saw  terrestrial 
objects,  did  not  think  at  all  about  them,  but  only 
about  those  which  they  signified.  The  correspond 
ence  between  thoughts  and  things  henceforward 
occupied  him.  "The  very  oi'ganic  form  resembles 
the  end  inscribed  on  it.11  A  man  is  in  general,  and 
in  particular,  an  organized  justice  or  injustice,  sel 
fishness  or  gratitude.  And  the  cause  of  this  har 
mony  he  assigned  in  the  Arcana  :  "  The  reason 
why  all  and  single  things,  in  the  heavens  and  on 
earth,  are  representative  is  because  they  exist  from 
an  influx  of  the  Lord,  through  heaven."  This 
design  of  exhibiting  such  correspondences,  which, 
if  adequately  executed,  would  be  the  poem  of  the 
world,  in  which  all  history  and  science  would  play 
an  essential  part,  was  narrowed  and  defeated  by  the 
exclusively  theologic  direction  which  his  inquiries 
took.  His  perception  of  nature  is  not  human  and 
universal,  but  is  mystical  and  Hebraic.  He  fastens 


SWEDENBORG ;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.       99 

each  natural  object  to  a  theologic  notion :  a  horse 
signifies  carnal  understanding ;  a  tree,  perception ; 
the  moon,  faith ;  a  cat  means  this ;  an  ostrich,  that ; 
an  artichoke,  this  other;  and  poorly  tethers  every 
symbol  to  a  several  ecclesiastical  sense.  The  slip 
pery  Proteus  is  not  so  easily  caught.  In  nature, 
each  individual  symbol  plays  innumerable  parts,  as 
each  particle  of  matter  circulates  in  turn  through 
every  system.  The  central  identity  enables  any  one 
symbol  to  express  successively  all  the  qualities  and 
shades  of  real  being.  In  the  transmission  of  the 
heavenly  waters,  every  hose  fits  every  hydrant.  Na 
ture  avenges  herself  speedily  on  the  hard  pedantry 
that  would  chain  her  waves.  She  is  no  literalist. 
Everything  must  be  taken  genially,  and  we  must  be 
at  the  top  of  our  condition  to  understand  anything 
rightly. 

His  theological  bias  thus  fatally  narrowed  his 
interpretation  of  nature,  and  the  dictionary  of  sym 
bols  is  yet  to  be  written.  But  the  interpreter  whom 
mankind  must  still  expect  will  find  no  predecessor 
who  has  approached  so  near  to  the  true  problem. 

Swedenborg  styles  himself,  in  the  title-page  of  his 
books,  "  Servant  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  "  and  by 
force  of  intellect,  and  in  effect,  he  is  the  last  Father 
in  the  Church,  and  is  not  likely  to  have  a  successor. 
No  wonder  that  his  depth  of  ethical  wisdom  should 
give  him  influence  as  a  teacher.  To  the  withered 
traditional  Church  yielding  dry  catechisms,  he  let  in 
nature  again,  and  the  worshipper,  escaping  from  the 
vestry  of  verbs  and  texts,  is  surprised  to  find  himself 
a  party  to  the  whole  of  his  religion.  His  religion 


100  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

thinks  for  him,  and  is  of  universal  application.  He 
turns  it  on  every  side ;  it  fits  every  part  of  life, 
interprets  and  dignifies  every  circumstance.  Instead 
of  a  religion  which  visited  him  diplomatically  three 
or  four  times,  —  when  he  was  born,  when  he  mar 
ried,  when  he  fell  sick,  and  when  he  died,  and  for 
the  rest  never  interfered  with  him,  —  here  was  a 
teaching  which  accompanied  him  all  day,  accompa 
nied  him  even  into  sleep  and  dreams ;  into  his  think 
ing,  and  showed  him  through  what  a  long  ancestry 
his  thoughts  descend ;  into  society,  and  showed  by 
what  affinities  he  was  girt  to  his  equals  and  his 
counterparts ;  into  natural  objects,  and  showed  their 
origin  and  meaning,  what  are  friendly  and  what  are 
hurtful ;  and  opened  the  future  world,  by  indicating 
the  continuity  of  the  same  laws.  His  disciples 
allege  that  their  intellect  is  invigorated  by  the  study 
of  his  books.  *J 

There  is  no  such  problem  for  criticism  as  his  the 
ological  writings,  their  merits  are  so  commanding; 
yet  such  grave  deductions  must  be  made.  Their 
immense  and  sandy  diffuseness  is  like  the  prairie  or 
the  desert,  and  their  incongruities  are  like  the  last 
deliration.  He  is  superfluously  explanatory,  and  his 
feeling  of  the  ignorance  of  men  strangely  exag 
gerated.  Men  take  truths  of  this  nature  very  fast. 
Yet  he  abounds  in  assertions  ;  he  is  a  rich  discoverer, 
and  of  things  which  most  import  us  to  know.  His 
thought  dwells  in  essential  resemblances,  like  the  re 
semblance  of  a  house  to  the  man  who  built  it.  He 
saw  things  in  their  law,  in  likeness  of  function,  not  of 
structure,  There  is  an  invariable  method  and  order 


SIVEDENBORG  ;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     IOI 

in  his  delivery  of  his  truth,  the  habitual  proceeding  of 
the  mind  from  inmost  to  outmost.  What  earnest 
ness  and  weightiness  —  his  eye  never  roving,  with 
out  one  swell  of  vanity,  or  one  look  to  self,  in  any 
common  form  of  literary  pride  !  A  theoretic  or  specu 
lative  man,  but  whom  no  practical  man  in  the  universe 
could  affect  to  scorn.  Plato  is  a  gownsman  ;  his  gar 
ment,  though  of  purple  and  almost  sky-woven,  is  an 
academic  robe,  and  hinders  action  with  its  volumi 
nous  folds.  But  this  mystic  is  awful  to  Caesar.  Ly- 
curgus  himself  would  bow. 

The  moral  insight  of  Swedenborg,  the  correction 
of  popular  errors,  the  announcement  of  ethical  laws, 
take  him  out  of  comparison  with  any  other  modern 
writer,  and  entitle  him  to  a  place,  vacant  for  some 
ages,  among  the  law-givers  of  mankind.  That  slow 
but  commanding  influence  which  he  has  acquired, 
like  that  of  other  religious  geniuses,  must  be  exces 
sive  also,  and  have  its  tides,  before  it  subsides  into 
a  permanent  amount.  Of  course,  what  is  real  and 
universal  cannot  be  confined  to  the  circle  of  those 
who  sympathize  strictly  with  his  genius,  but  will  pass 
forth  into  the  common  stock  of  wise  and  just  think 
ing.  The  world  has  a  sure  chemistry,  by  which  it 
extracts  what  is  excellent  in  its  children,  and  lets  fall 
the  infirmities  and  limitations  of  the  grandest  mind. 

That  metempsychosis  which  is  familiar  in  the  old 
mythology  of  the  Greeks,  collected  in  Ovid  and  in 
the  Indian  Transmigration,  and  is  there  objective,  or 
really  takes  place  in  bodies  by  alien  will,  — in  Swe- 
denborg's  mind  has  a  more  philosophic  character. 
It  is  subjective,  or  depends  entirely  upon  the  thought 


102  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  the  person.  All  things  in  the  universe  arrange 
themselves  to  each  person  anew,  according  to  his 
ruling  love.  Man  is  such  as  his  affection  and 
thought  are.  Man  is  man  by  virtue  of  willing,  not 
by  virtue  of  knowing  and  understanding.  As  he  is, 
so  he  sees.  The  marriages  of  the  world  are  broken 
up.  Interiors  associate  all  in  the  spiritual  world. 
Whatever  the  angels  looked  upon  was  to  them  celes 
tial.  Each  Satan  appears  to  himself  a  man :  to  those 
as  bad  as  he,  a  comely  man ;  to  the  purified,  a  heap 
of  carrion.  Nothing  can  resist  states ;  everything 
gravitates ;  like  will  to  like ;  what  we  call  poetic 
justice  takes  effect  on  the  spot.  We  have  come  into 
a  world  which  is  a  living  poem.  Every  thing  is  as 
I  am.  Bird  and  beast  is  not  bird  and  beast,  but 
emanation  and  effluvia  of  the  minds  and  wills  of  men 
there  present.  Every  one  makes  his  own  house  and 
state.  The  ghosts  are  tormented  with  the  fear  of 
death,  and  cannot  remember  that  they  have  died. 
They  who  are  in  evil  and  falsehood  are  afraid  of  all 
others.  Such  as  have  deprived  themselves  of  charity 
wander  and  flee ;  the  societies  which  they  approach 
discover  their  quality,  and  drive  them  away.  The 
covetous  seem  to  themselves  to  be  abiding  in  cells 
where  their  money  is  deposited,  and  these  to  be  in 
fested  with  mice.  They  who  place  merit  in  good 
works  seem  to  themselves  to  cut  wood.  "I  asked 
such  if  they  were  not  wearied.  They  replied  that 
they  have  not  yet  done  work  enough  to  merit 
heaven. " 

He  delivers   golden   sayings,  which  express  with 
singular  beauty  the  ethical  laws ;  as  when  he  uttered 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     103 

that  famed  sentence,  that  "In  heaven  the  angels 
are  advancing  continually  to  the  springtime  of  their 
youth,  so  that  the  oldest  angel  appears  the  young 
est;1'  "The  more  angels,  the  more  room;"  "The 
perfection  of  man  is  the  love  of  use  ;"  "  Man,  in  his 
perfect  form,  is  heaven;11  "What  is  from  Him  is 
Him;11  "Ends  always  ascend  as  nature  descends ;" 
and  the  truly  poetic  account  of  the  writing  in  the 
inmost  heaven,  which,  as  it  consists  of  inflexions  ac 
cording  to  the  form  of  heaven,  can  be  read  without 
instruction.  He  almost  justifies  his  claim  to  preter 
natural  vision,  by  strange  insights  of  the  structure  of 
the  human  body  and  mind.  "It  is  never  permitted 
to  any  one  in  heaven  to  stand  behind  another  and 
look  at  the  back  of  his  head  ;  for  then  the  influx 
which  is  from  the  Lord  is  disturbed."  The  angels, 
from  the  sound  of  the  voice,  know  a  man's  love  ;  from 
the  articulation  of  the  sound,  his  wisdom ;  and  from 
the  sense  of  the  words,  his  science. 

In  the  "  Conjugal  Love,"  he  has  unfolded  the 
science  of  marriage.  Of  this  book  one  would  say 
that,  with  the  highest  elements,  it  has  failed  of 
success.  It  came  near  to  be  the  Hymn  of  Love 
which  Plato  attempted  in  the  "  Banquet;  "  the  love 
which,  Dante  says,  Casella  sang  among  the  angels 
in  Paradise ;  and  which,  as  rightly  celebrated,  in  its 
genesis,  fruition,  and  effect,  might  well  entrance  the 
soul,  as  it  would  lay  open  the  genesis  of  all  institu 
tions,  customs,  and  manners.  The  book  had  been 
grand  if  the  Hebraism  had  been  omitted,  and  the 
law  stated  without  Gothicism,  as  ethics,  and  with 
that  scope  for  ascension  of  state  which  the  nature  of 


104  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

things  requires.  It  is  a  fine  Platonic  development 
of  the  science  of  marriage ;  teaching  that  sex  is  uni 
versal,  and  not  local ;  virility  in  the  male  qualifying 
every  organ,  act,  and  thought ;  and  the  feminine  in 
woman.  Therefore,  in  the  real  or  spiritual  world 
the  nuptial  union  is  not  momentary,  but  incessant 
and  total ;  and  chastity  not  a  local,  but  a  universal 
virtue ;  unchastity  being  discovered  as  much  in  the 
trading,  or  planting,  or  speaking,  or  philosophizing, 
as  in  generation ;  and  that,  though  the  virgins  he 
saw  in  heaven  were  beautiful,  the  wives  were  incom 
parably  more  beautiful,  and  went  on  increasing  in 
beauty  evermore. 

Yet  Swedenborg,  after  his  mode,  pinned  his  theory 
to  a  temporary  form.  He  exaggerates  the  circum 
stance  of  marriage ;  and,  though  he  finds  false  mar 
riages  on  earth,  fancies  a  wiser  choice  in  heaven. 
But  of  progressive  souls,  all  loves  and  friendships  are 
momentary.  Do  you  love  me  f  means,  Do  you  see 
the  same  truth?  If  you  do,  we  are  happy  with  the 
same  happiness ;  but  presently  one  of  us  passes  into 
the  perception  of  new  truth  —  we  are  divorced,  and 
no  tension  in  nature  can  hold  us  to  each  other.  I 
know  how  delicious  is  this  cup  of  love  —  I  existing 
for  you,  you  existing  for  me;  but  it  is  a  child's 
clinging  to  his  toy ;  an  attempt  to  eternize  the  fire 
side  and  nuptial  chamber;  to  keep  the  picture-al 
phabet  through  which  our  first  lessons  are  prettily 
conveyed.  The  Eden  of  God  is  bare  and  grand; 
like  the  outdoor  landscape  remembered  from  the 
evening  fireside,  it  seems  cold  and  desolate  whilst 
you  cower  over  the  coals ;  but  once  abroad  again,  we 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     105 

pity  those  who  can  forego  the  magnificence  of  nature 
for  candle-light  and  cards.  Perhaps  the  true  subject 
of  the  ««  Conjugal  Love  "  is  Conversation,  whose  laws 
are  profoundly  eliminated.  It  is  false,  if  literally 
applied  to  marriage.  For  God  is  the  bride  or  bride 
groom  of  the  soul.  Heaven  is  not  the  pairing  of 
two,  but  the  communion  of  all  souls.  We  meet,  and 
dwell  an  instant  under  the  temple  of  one  thought, 
and  part  as  though  we  parted  not,  to  join  another 
thought  in  other  fellowships  of  joy.  So  far  from 
there  being  anything  divine  in  the  low  and  proprie 
tary  sense  of  Do  you  love  me  ?  it  is  only  when  you 
leave  and  lose  me,  by  casting  yourself  on  a  sentiment 
which  is  higher  than  both  of  us,  that  I  draw  near, 
and  find  myself  at  your  side ;  and  I  am  repelled, 
if  you  fix  your  eye  on  me  and  demand  love.  In 
fact,  in  the  spiritual  world  we  change  sexes  every 
moment.  You  love  the  worth  in  me ;  then  I  am 
your  husband ;  but  it  is  not  me,  but  the  worth,  that 
fixes  the  love ;  and  that  worth  is  a  drop  of  the  ocean 
of  worth  that  is  beyond  me.  Meantime,  I  adore  the 
greater  worth  in  another,  and  so  become  his  wife. 
He  aspires  to  a  higher  worth  in  another  spirit,  and 
is  wife  or  receiver  of  that  influence. 

Whether  from  a  self-inquisitorial  habit  that  he  grew 
into,  from  jealousy  of  the  sins  to  which  men  of 
thought  are  liable,  he  has  acquired,  in  disentangling 
and  demonstrating  that  particular  form  of  moral  dis 
ease,  an  acumen  which  no  conscience  can  resist.  I 
refer  to  his  feeling  of  the  profanation  of  thinking  to 
what  is  good  "  from  scientifics."  "  To  reason  about 


106  REPRESENTATIVE  AT  EN. 

faith  is  to  doubt  and  deny."  He  was  painfully  alive 
to  the  difference  between  knowing  and  doing,  and 
this  sensibility  is  incessantly  expressed.  Philoso 
phers  are,  therefore,  vipers,  cockatrices,  asps,  hemor 
rhoids,  presters,  and  flying  serpents  ;  literary  men  are 
conjurors  and  charlatans. 

But  this  topic  suggests  a  sad  afterthought,  that 
here  we  find  the  seat  of  his  own  pain.  Possibly 
Swedenborg  paid  the  penalty  of  introverted  faculties. 
Success,  or  a  fortunate  genius,  seems  to  depend  on  a 
happy  adjustment  of  heart  and  brain ;  on  a  due  pro 
portion,  hard  to  hit,  of  moral  and  mental  power, 
which,  perhaps,  obeys  the  law  of  those  chemical  ratios 
which  make  a  proportion  in  volumes  necessary  to 
combination,  as  when  gases  will  combine  in  certain 
fixed  rates,  but  not  at  any  rate.  It  is  hard  to  carry 
a  full  cup ;  and  this  man,  profusely  endowed  in  heart 
and  mind,  early  fell  into  dangerous  discord  with  him 
self.  In  his  "  Animal  Kingdom  "  he  surprised  us  by 
declaring  that  he  loved  analysis  and  not  synthesis ; 
and  now,  after  his  fiftieth  year,  he  falls  into  jealousy 
of  his  intellect;  and,  though  aware  that  truth  is  not 
solitary,  nor  is  goodness  solitary,  but  both  must  ever 
mix  and  marry,  he  makes  war  on  his  mind,  takes  the 
part  of  the  conscience  against  it,  and  on  all  occa 
sions  traduces  and  blasphemes  it.  The  violence  is 
instantly  avenged.  Beauty  is  disgraced,  love  is  un 
lovely,  when  truth,  the  half  part  of  heaven,  is  denied, 
as  much  as  when  a  bitterness  in  men  of  talent  leads 
to  satire  and  destroys  the  judgment.  He  is  wise,  but 
wise  in  his  own  despite.  There  is  an  air  of  infinite 
grief,  and  the  sound  of  wailing,  all  over  and  through 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    7" HE  MYSTIC.     107 

this  lurid  universe.  A  vampire  sits  in  the  seat  of  the 
prophet,  and  turns  with  gloomy  appetite  to  the  images 
of  pain.  Indeed,  a  bird  does  not  more  readily  weave 
its  nest,  or  a  mole  bore  into  the  ground,  than  this 
seer  of  the  souls  substructs  a  new  hell  and  pit,  each 
more  abominable  than  the  last,  round  every  new  crew 
of  offenders.  He  was  let  down  through  a  column 
that  seemed  of  brass,  but  it  was  formed  of  angelic 
spirits,  that  he  might  descend  safely  amongst  the  un 
happy,  and  witness  the  vastation  of  souls  ;  and  heard 
there,  for  a  long  continuance,  their  lamentations  ;  he 
saw  their  tormentors,  who  increase  and  strain  pangs 
to  infinity ;  he  saw  the  hell  of  the  jugglers,  the  hell  of 
the  assassins,  the  hell  of  the  lascivious  ;  the  hell  of  rob 
bers,  who  kill  and  boil  men  ;  the  infernal  tun  of  the 
deceitful ;  the  excrementitious  hells ;  the  hell  of  the 
revengeful,  whose  faces  resembled  a  round,  broad 
cake,  and  their  arms  rotate  like  a  wheel.  Except 
Rabelais  and  Dean  Swift,  nobody  ever  had  such 
science  of  filth  and  corruption. 

These  books  should  be  used  with  caution.  It  is 
dangerous  to  sculpture  these  evanescing  images  of 
thought.  True  in  transition,  they  become  false  if 
fixed.  It  requires,  for  his  just  apprehension,  almost 
a  genius  equal  to  his  own.  But  when  his  visions  be 
come  the  stereotyped  language  of  multitudes  of  per 
sons,  of  all  degrees  of  age  and  capacity,  they  are 
perverted.  The  wise  people  of  the  Greek  race  were 
accustomed  to  lead  the  most  intelligent  and  virtuous 
young  men,  as  part  of  their  education,  through  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries,  wherein,  with  much  pomp  and 
graduation,  the  highest  truths  known  to  ancient  wis- 


IOS  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

dom  were  taught.  An  ardent  and  contemplative 
young  man,  at  eighteen  or  twenty  years,  might  read 
once  these  books  of  Swedenborg,  these  mysteries  of 
love  and  conscience,  and  then  throw  them  aside  for 
ever.  Genius  is  ever  haunted  by  similar  dreams, 
when  the  hells  and  the  heavens  are  opened  to  it.  But 
these  pictures  are  to  be  held  as  mystical ;  that  is,  as  a 
quite  arbitrary  and  accidental  picture  of  the  truth,  — 
not  as  the  truth.  Any  other  symbol  would  be  as 
good :  then  this  is  safely  seen. 

Swedenborg's  system  of  the  world  wants  central 
spontaneity ;  it  is  dynamic,  not  vital,  and  lacks  power 
to  generate  life.  There  is  no  individual  in  it.  The 
universe  is  a  gigantic  crystal,  all  whose  atoms  and 
laminae  lie  in  uninterrupted  order,  and  with  unbroken 
unity,  but  cold  and  still.  What  seems  an  individual 
and  a  will,  is  none.  There  is  an  immense  chain  of 
intermediation,  extending  from  centre  to  extremes, 
which  bereaves  every  agency  of  all  freedom  and 
character.  The  universe,  in  his  poem,  suffers  under 
a  magnetic  sleep,  and  only  reflects  the  mind  of  the 
magnetizer.  Every  thought  comes  into  each  mind 
by  influence  from  a  society  of  spirits  that  surround  it, 
and  into  these  from  a  higher  society,  and  so  on.  All 
his  types  mean  the  same  few  things.  All  his  figures 
speak  one  speech.  All  his  interlocutors  Sweden- 
borgise.  Be  they  who  they  may,  to  this  complexion 
must  they  come  at  last.  This  Charon  ferries  them 
all  over  in  his  boat :  kings,  counsellors,  cavaliers, 
doctors,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  King 
George  II.,  Mahomet,  or  whosoever,  and  all  gather 
one  grimness  of  hue  and  style.  Only  when  Cicsro 


SWEDENBORG ;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     109 

comes  by,  our  gentle  seer  sticks  a  little  at  saying  ha 
talked  with  Cicero,  and,  with  a  touch  of  human  re 
lenting,  remarks,  "one  whom  it  was  given  me  to 
believe  was  Cicero  ;  "  and  when  the  soi  disant  Roman 
opens  his  mouth,  Rome  and  eloquence  have  ebbed 
away,  —  it  is  plain  theologic  Svvedenborg,  like  the 
rest.  His  heavens  and  hells  are  dull :  fault  of  want 
of  individualism.  The  thousand-fold  relation  of  men 
is  not  there.  The  interest  that  attaches  in  nature  to 
each  man,  because  he  is  right  by  his  wrong,  and 
wrong  by  his  right,  because  he  defies  all  dogmatiz 
ing  and  classification,  so  many  allowances,  and  con- 
tingences,  and  futurities  are  to  be  taken  into  account, 
strong  by  his  vices,  often  paralyzed  by  his  virtues,  — 
sinks  into  entire  sympathy  with  his  society.  This 
want  reacts  to  the  centre  of  the  system.  Though 
the  agency  of  "  the  Lord"  is  in  every  line  referred  to 
by  name,  it  never  becomes  alive.  There  is  no  lustre 
in  that  eye  which  gazes  from  the  centre,  and  which 
should  vivify  the  immense  dependency  of  beings. 

The  vice  of  Swedenborg's  mind  is  its  theologic  de 
termination.  Nothing  with  him  has  the  liberality  of 
universal  wisdom,  but  we  are  always  in  a  church. 
That  Hebrew  muse,  which  taught  the  lore  of  right 
and  wrong  to  men,  had  the  same  excess  of  influence 
for  him  it  has  had  for  the  nations.  The  mode,  as 
well  as  the  essence,  was  sacred.  Palestine  is  ever  the 
more  valuable  as  a  chapter  in  universal  history,  and 
ever  the  less  an  available  element  in  education.  The 
genius  of  Swedenborg,  largest  of  all  modern  souls  in 
this  department  of  thought,  wasted  itself  in  the  en 
deavor  to  reanimate  and  conserve  what  had  already 


1 10  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

arrived  at  its  natural  term,  and,  in  the  great  secular 
Providence,  was  retiring  from  its  prominence,  before 
western  modes  of  thought  and  expression.  Sweden- 
borg  and  Behmen  both  failed  by  attaching  themselves 
to  the  Christian  symbol,  instead  of  to  the  moral 
sentiment,  which  carries  innumerable  Christianities, 
humanities,  divinities,  in  its  bosom. 

The  excess  of  influence  shows  itself  in  the  incon 
gruous  importation  of  a  foreign  rhetoric.  "  What 
have  I  to  do,"  asks  the  impatient  reader,  "  with  jas 
per  and  sardonyx,  beryl  and  chalcedony ;  what  with 
arks  and  passovers,  ephahs  and  ephods ;  what  with 
lepers  and  emerods ;  what  with  heave-offerings  and 
unleavened  bread ;  chariots  of  fire,  dragons  crowned 
and  horned,  behemoth  and  unicorn  ?  Good  for 
Orientals,  these  are  nothing  to  me.  The  more  learn 
ing  you  bring  to  explain  them,  the  more  glaring  the 
impertinence.  The  more  coherent  and  elaborate  the 
system,  the  less  I  like  it.  I  say,  with  the  Spartan, 
'  Why  do  you  speak  so  much  to  the  purpose,  of  that 
which  is  nothing  to  the  purpose  ? '  My  learning  is 
such  as  God  gave  me  in  my  birth  and  habit,  in  the 
delight  and  study  of  my  eyes,  and  not  of  another 
man's.  Of  all  absurdities,  this  of  some  foreigner, 
proposing  to  take  away  my  rhetoric,  and  substitute 
his  own,  and  amuse  me  with  pelican  and  stork,  in 
stead  of  thrush  and  robin;  palm-trees  and  shittim- 
wood,  instead  of  sassafras  and  hickory,  —  seems  the 
most  needless." 

Locke  said,  "God,  when  he  makes  the  prophet, 
does  not  unmake  the  man."  Swedenborg's  history 
points  the  remark.  The  parish  disputes,  in  the 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     Ill 

Swedish  church,  between  the  friends  and  foes  of 
Luther  and  Melancthon,  concerning  "faith  alone" 
and  "  works  alone,1'  intrude  themselves  into  his 
speculations  upon  the  economy  of  the  universe  and 
of  the  celestial  societies.  The  Lutheran  bishop's  son, 
for  whom  the  heavens  are  opened,  so  that  he  sees 
with  eyes,  and  in  the  richest  symbolic  forms,  the 
awful  truth  of  things,  and  utters  again,  in  his  books, 
as  under  a  heavenly  mandate,  the  indisputable  secrets 
of  moral  nature,  —  with  all  these  grandeurs  resting 
upon  him,  remains  the  Lutheran  bishop's  son ;  his 
judgments  are  those  of  a  Swedish  polemic,  and  his 
vast  enlargements  purchased  by  adamantine  limita 
tions.  He  carries  his  controversial  memory  with 
him  in  his  visits  to  the  souls.  He  is  like  Michael 
Angelo,  who,  in  his  frescoes,  put  the  cardinal  who 
had  offended  him  to  roast  under  a  mountain  of  devils  ; 
or,  like  Dante,  who  avenged,  in  vindictive  melodies, 
all  his  private  wrongs ;  or,  perhaps  still  more  like 
Montaigne's  parish  priest,  who,  if  a  hail-storm  passes 
over  the  village,  thinks  the  day  of  doom  is  come,  and 
the  cannibals  already  have  got  the  pip.  Swedenborg 
confounds  us  not  less  with  the  pains  of  Melancthon, 
and  Luther,  and  Wolnus,  and  his  own  books,  which 
he  advertises  among  the  angels. 

Under  the  same  theologic  cramp,  many  of  his 
dogmas  are  bound.  His  cardinal  position  in  morals 
is,  that  evils  should  be  shunned  as  sins.  But  he 
does  not  know  what  evil  is,  or  what  good  is,  who 
thinks  any  ground  remains  to  be  occupied,  after  say 
ing  that  evil  is  to  be  shunned  as  evil.  I  doubt  not 
he  was  led  by  the  desire  to  insert  the  element  of  per- 


112  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sonality  of  Deity.  But  nothing  is  added.  One  man, 
you  say,  dreads  erysipelas, — show  him  that  this 
dread  is  evil;  or,  one  dreads  hell, — show  him  that 
dread  is  evil.  He  who  loves  goodness,  harbors 
angels,  reveres  reverence,  and  lives  with  God.  The 
less  we  have  to  do  with  our  sins,  the  better.  No 
man  can  afford  to  waste  his  moments  in  compunc 
tions.  "  That  is  active  duty,"  say  the  Hindoos, 
"which  is  not  for  our  bondage;  that  is  knowledge, 
which  is  for  our  liberation :  all  other  duty  is  good 
only  unto  weariness." 

Another  dogma,  growing  out  of  this  pernicious 
theologic  limitation,  is  this  Inferno.  Swedenborg 
has  devils.  Evil,  according  to  old  philosophers,  is 
good  in  the  making.  That  pure  malignity  can  exist, 
is  the  extreme  proposition  of  unbelief.  It  is  not  to 
be  entertained  by  a  rational  agent ;  it  is  atheism ;  it 

is  the  last  profanation.     Euripides  rightly  said, 

t 

"  Goodness  and  being  in  the  gods  are  one ; 
He  who  imputes  ill  to  them  makes  them  none." 

To  what  a  painful  perversion  had  Gothic  theology 
arrived,  that  Swedenborg  admitted  no  conversion  for 
evil  spirits  !  But  the  divine  effort  is  never  relaxed ; 
the  carrion  in  the  sun  will  convert  itself  to  grass  and 
flowers ;  and  man,  though  in  brothels,  or  jails,  or  on 
gibbets,  is  on  his  way  to  all  that  is  good  and  true. 
Burns,  with  the  wild  humor  of  his  apostrophe  to 
"poor  old  Nickie  Ben," 

"  O  wad  ye  tak  a  thought,  and  mend !  " 
has   the   advantage    of   the    vindictive    theologian. 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     113 

Everything  is  superficial  and  perishes,  but  love  and 
truth  only.  The  largest  is  always  the  truest  senti 
ment,  and  we  feel  the  more  generous  spirit  of  the 
Indian  Vishnu,  —  "I  am  the  same  to  all  mankind. 
There  is  not  one  who  is  worthy  of  my  love  or 
hatred.  They  who  serve  me  with  adoration,  —  I 
am  in  them,  and  they  in  me.  If  one  whose  ways 
are  altogether  evil  serve  me  alone,  he  is  as  respectable 
as  the  just  man ;  he  is  altogether  well  employed ;  he 
soon  becometh  of  a  virtuous  spirit  and  obtaineth 
eternal  happiness." 

For  the  anomalous  pretension  of  Revelations  of 
the  other  world,  —  only  his  probity  and  genius  can 
entitle  it  to  any  serious  regard.  His  revelations  de 
stroy  their  credit  by  running  into  detail.  If  a  man 
say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  informed  him  that  the 
Last  Judgment  (or  the  last  of  the  judgments)  took 
place  in  1757;  or,  that  the  Dutch,  in  the  other 
world,  live  in  a  heaven  by  themselves,  and  the 
English,  in  a  heaven  by  themselves ;  I  reply,  that  the 
Spirit,  which  is  holy,  is  reserved,  taciturn,  and  deals 
in  laws.  The  rumors  of  ghosts  and  hobgoblins 
gossip  and  tell  fortunes.  The  teachings  of  the  high 
Spirit  are  abstemious,  and,  in  regard  to  particulars, 
negative.  Socrates'  Genius  did  not  advise  him  to 
act  or  to  find,  but  if  he  purposed  to  do  somewhat 
not  advantageous,  it  dissuaded  him.  "What  God 
is,"  he  said,  "  I  know  not;  what  he  is  not,  I  know." 
The  Hindoos  have  denominated  the  Supreme  Being, 
the  "Internal  Check."  The  illuminated  Quakers 
explained  their  Light,  not  as  somewhat  which  leads 
to  any  action,  but  it  appears  as  an  obstruction  to  any- 


114  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

thing  unfit.  But  the  right  examples  are  private  ex 
periences,  which  are  absolutely  at  one  on  this  point. 
Strictly  speaking,  Swedenborg's  revelation  is  a  con 
founding  of  planes,  —  a  capital  offence  in  so  learned 
a  categorist.  This  is  to  carry  the  law  of  surface  into 
the  plane  of  substance,  to  carry  individualism  and  its 
fopperies  into  the  realm  of  essences  and  generals, 
—  which  is  dislocation  and  chaos. 

The  secret  of  heaven  is  kept  from  age  to  age.  No 
imprudent,  no  sociable  angel  ever  dropped  an  early 
syllable  to  answer  the  longings  of  saints,  the  fears  of 
mortals.  We  should  have  listened  on  our  knees  to 
any  favorite,  who,  by  stricter  obedience,  had  brought 
his  thoughts  into  parallelism  with  the  celestial  cur 
rents,  and  could  hint  to  human  ears  the  scenery  and 
circumstance  of  the  newly  parted  soul.  But  it  is 
certain  that  it  must  tally  with  what  is  best  in  nature. 
It  must  not  be  inferior  in  tone  to  the  already  known 
works  of  the  artist  who  sculptures  the  globes  of  the 
firmament,  and  writes  the  moral  law.  It  must  be 
fresher  than  rainbows,  stabler  than  mountains,  agree 
ing  with  flowers,  with  tides,  and  the  rising  and  setting 
of  autumnal  stars.  Melodious  poets  shall  be  hoarse 
as  street  ballads,  when  once  the  penetrating  key-note 
of  nature  and  spirit  is  sounded,  —  the  earth-beat, 
sea-beat,  heart-beat,  which  makes  the  tune  to  which 
the  sun  rolls,  and  the  globule  of  blood,  and  the  sap 
of  trees. 

In  this  mood  we  hear  the  rumor  that  the  seer  has 
arrived,  and  his  tale  is  told.  But  there  is  no  beauty, 
no  heaven :  for  angels,  goblins.  The  sad  muse  loves 
night  and  death,  and  the  pit.  His  Inferno  is  mes- 


SWEDEtfBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     115 

meric.  His  spiritual  world  bears  the  same  relation 
to  the  generosities  and  joys  of  truth,  of  which  human 
souls  have  already  made  us  cognizant,  as  a  man's 
bad  dreams  bear  to  his  ideal  life.  It  is  indeed  very 
like,  in  its  endless  power  of  lurid  pictures,  to  the 
phenomena  of  dreaming,  which  nightly  turns  many 
an  honest  gentleman,  benevolent,  but  dyspeptic,  into 
a  wretch,  skulking  like  a  dog  about  the  outer  yards 
and  kennels  of  creation.  When  he  mounts  into  tli2 
heaven,  I  do  not  hear  its  language.  A  man  should 
not  tell  ma  that  he  has  walked  among  the  angels  :  his 
proof  is  that  his  eloquence  makes  me  one.  Shall 
the  archangels  be  less  majestic  and  sweet  than  the 
figures  that  have  actually  walked  the  earth?  These 
angels  that  Swedenborg  paints  give  us  no  very  high 
idea  of  their  discipline  and  culture :  they  are  all 
country  parsons  :  their  heaven  is  a  fete  champetre,  an 
evangelical  picnic,  or  French  distribution  of  prizes 
to  virtuous  peasants.  Strange,  scholastic,  didactic, 
passionless,  bloodless  man,  who  denotes  classes  of 
souls  as  a  botanist  disposes  of  a  carex,  and  visits 
doleful  hells  as  a  stratum  of  chalk  or  hornblende  ! 
He  has  no  sympathy.  He  goes  up  and  down  the 
world  of  men,  a  modern  Rhadamanthus  in  gold- 
headed  cane  and  peruke,  and  with  nonchalance  and 
the  air  of  a  referee  distributes  souls.  The  warm, 
many-weathered,  passionate-peopled  world  is  to  him 
a  grammar  of  hieroglyphs,  or  an  emblematic  free 
mason's  procession.  How  different  is  Jacob  Behmen  ! 
he  is  tremulous  with  emotion,  and  listens  awe-struck, 
with  the  gentlest  humanity,  to  the  Teacher  whose 
lessons  he  conveys;  and  when  he  asserts  that,  "in 


Il6  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

some  sort,  love  is  greater  than  God,11  Ivis  heart  beats 
so  high  that  the  thumping  against  his  leathern  coat  is 
audible  across  the  centuries.  Tis  a  great  difference. 
Behmen  is  healthily  and  beautifully  wise,  notwith 
standing  the  mystical  narrowness  and  incommuni- 
cableness.  Swedenborg  is  disagreeably  wise,  and, 
with  all  his  accumulated  gifts,  paralyzes  and  repels. 

It  is  the  best  sign  of  a  great  nature,  that  it  opens 
a  foreground,  and,  like  the  breath  of  morning  land 
scapes,  invites  us  onward.  Swedenborg  is  retrospec 
tive,  nor  can  we  divest  him  of  his  mattock  and  shroud. 
Some  minds  are  forever  restrained  from  descending 
into  nature;  others  are  forever  prevented  from 
ascending  out  of  it.  With  a  force  of  many  men,  he 
could  never  break  the  umbilical  cord  which  held  him 
to  nature,  and  he  did  not  rise  to  the  platform  of  pure 
genius. 

It  is  remarkable  that  this  r»an,  who,  by  his  per 
ception  of  symbols,  saw  the  poetic  construction  of 
things,  and  the  primary  relation  of  mind  to  matter, 
remained  entirely  devoid  of  the  whole  apparatus  of 
poetic  expression,  which  that  perception  creates. 
He  knew  the  grammar  and  rudiments  of  the  mother- 
tongue,  —  how  could  he  not  read  off  one  strain  into 
music?  Was  he  like  Saadi,  who,  in  his  vision, 
designed  to  fill  his  lap  with  celestial  flowers,  as  pres 
ents  for  his  friends  ;  but  the  fragrance  of  those  roses 
so  intoxicated  him,  that  the  skirt  dropped  from  his 
hands  ?  or,  is  reporting  a  breach  of  the  manners  of 
that  heavenly  society?  or,  was  it  that  he  saw  the 
vision  intellectually,  and  hence  that  chiding  of  the 
intellectual  that  prevades  his  books?  Be  it  as  it 


SWEDENBORG;    OR,    THE  MYSTIC.     117 

may,  his  books  have  no  melody,  no  emotion,  no 
humor,  no  relief  to  the  dead  prosaic  level.  In  his 
profuse  and  accurate  imagery  is  no  pleasure,  for  there 
is  no  beauty.  We  wander  forlorn  in  a  lack-lustre 
landscape.  No  bird  ever  sang  in  all  these  gardens 
of  the  dead.  The  entire  want  of  poetry  in  so  trans 
cendent  a  mind  betokens  the  disease,  and,  like  a 
hoarse  voice  in  a  beautiful  person,  is  a  kind  of  warn 
ing.  I  think,  sometimes,  he  will  not  be  read  longer. 
His  great  name  will  turn  a  sentence.  His  books 
have  become  a  monument.  His  laurel  so  largely 
mixed  with  cypress,  a  charnel-breath  so  mingles  with 
the  temple  incense,  that  boys  and  maids  will  shun 
the  spot. 

Yet,  in  this  immolation  of  genius  and  fame  at  the 
shrine  of  conscience,  is  a  merit  sublime  beyond 
praise.  He  lived  to  purpose :  he  gave  a  verdict. 
He  elected  goodness  as  the  clue  to  which  the  soul 
must  cling  in  all  this  labyrinth  of  nature.  Many 
opinions  conflict  as  to  the  true  centre.  In  the  ship 
wreck,  some  cling  to  running  rigging,  some  to  cask 
and  barrel,  some  to  spars,  some  to  mast ;  the  pilot 
chooses  with  science,  —  I  plant  myself  here  ;  all  will 
sink  before  this  ;  "he  comes  to  land  who  sails  with 
me."  Do  not  rely  on  heavenly  favor,  or  on  compas 
sion  to  folly,  or  on  prudence,  on  common-sense, 
the  old  usage  and  main  chance  of  men :  nothing 
can  keep  you,  —  not  fate,  nor  health,  nor  admira 
ble  intellect ;  none  can  keep  you,  but  rectitude  only, 
rectitude  for  ever  and  ever !  —  and,  with  a  tenacity 
that  never  swerved  in  all  his  studies,  inventions, 
dreams,  he  adheres  to  this  brave  choice.  I  think 


IlS  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  him  as  of  some  transmigrating  votary  of  Indian 
legend,  who  says,  "though  I  be  dog,  or  jackal,  or 
pismire,  in  the  last  rudiments  of  nature,  under  what 
integument  or  ferocity,  I  cleave  to  right,  as  the  sure 
ladder  that  leads  up  to  man  and  to  God." 

Swedenborg  has  rendered  a  double  service  to  man 
kind,  which  is  now  only  beginning  to  be  known. 
By  the  science  of  experiment  and  use,  he  made  his 
first  steps :  he  observed  and  published  the  laws  of 
nature ;  and,  ascending  by  just  degrees,  from  events 
to  their  summits  and  causes,  he  was  fired  with  piety 
at  the  harmonies  he  felt,  and  abandoned  himself  to 
his  joy  and  worship.  This  was  his  first  service.  If 
the  glory  was  too  bright  for  his  eyes  to  bear,  if  he 
staggered  under  the  trance  of  delight,  the  more  ex 
cellent  is  the  spectacle  he  saw,  the  realities  of  being 
which  beam  and  blaze  through  him,  and  which  no 
infirmities  of  the  prophet  are  suffered  to  obscure  ; 
and  he  renders  a  second  passive  service  to  men,  not 
less  than  the  first  —  perhaps,  in  the  great  circle  of 
being,  and  in  the  retributions  of  spiritual  nature,  not 
less  glorious  or  less  beautiful  to  himself. 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,  THE   SKEPTIC 


MONTAIGNE. 
(From  an  original  picture  at  Paris.) 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      121 

IV. 

MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE    SKEPTIC. 


EVERY  fact  is  related  on  one  side  to  sensation, 
and  on  the  other  to  morals.  The  game  of  thought 
is,  on  the  appearance  of  one  of  these  two  sides,  to  find 
the  other :  given  the  upper  to  find  the  under  side. 
Nothing  so  thin  but  has  these  two  faces ;  and,  when 
the  observer  has  seen  the  obverse  he  turns  it  over  to 
see  the  reverse.  Life  is  a  pitching  of  this  penny,  — 
heads  or  tails.  We  never  tire  of  this  game  because 
there  is  still  a  slight  shudder  of  astonishment  at  the 
exhibition  of  the  other  face  at  the  contrast  of  the  two 
faces.  A  man  is  flushed  with  success,  and  bethinks 
himself  what  this  good  luck  signifies.  He  drives  his 
bargain  in  the  street ;  but  it  occurs  that  he  also  is 
bought  and  sold.  He  sees  the  beauty  of  a  human 
face  and  searches  the  cause  of  that  beauty  which 
must  be  more  beautiful.  He  builds  his  fortunes, 
maintains  the  laws,  cherishes  his  children ;  but  he 
asks  himself,  why?  and  whereto?  This  head  and 
this  tail  are  called,  in  the  language  of  philosophy, 
Infinite  and  Finite  ;  Relative  and  Absolute  ;  Apparent 
and  Real ;  and  many  fine  names  beside. 

Each  man  is  born  with  a  predisposition  to  one  or 
the  other  of  these  sides  of  nature ;  and  it  will  easily 


122  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

happen  that  men  will  be  found  devoted  to  one  or  the 
other.  One  class  has  the  perception  of  difference 
and  is  conversant  with  facts  and  surfaces  ;  cities  and 
persons  ;  and  the  bringing  certain  things  to  pass  ;  — 
the  men  of  talent  and  action.  Another  class  have 
the  perception  of  identity,  and  are  men  of  faith  and 
philosophy,  men  of  genius. 

Each  of  these  riders  drives  too  fast.  Plotinus  be 
lieves  only  in  philosophers ;  Fenelon,  in  saints ; 
Pindar  and  Byron,  in  poets.  Read  the  haughty 
language  in  which  Plato  and  the  Platonists  speak  of 
all  men  who  are  not  devoted  to  their  own  shining 
abstractions :  other  men  are  rats  and  mice.  The 
literary  class  is  usually  proud  and  exclusive.  The 
correspondence  of  Pope  and  Swift  describes  mankind 
around  them  as  monsters ;  and  that  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  in  our  own  time,  is  scarcely  more  kind. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  arrogance  comes.  The 
genius  is  a  genius  by  the  first  'look  he  casts  on  any 
object.  Is  his  eye  creative?  Does  he  not  rest  in 
angles  and  colors,  but  beholds  the  design, —  he  will 
presently  undervalue  the  actual  object.  In  powerful 
moments  his  thought  has  dissolved  the  works  of  art 
and  nature  into  their  causes,  so  that  the  works 
appear  heavy  and  faulty.  He  has  a  conception  of 
beauty  which  the  sculptor  cannot  embody.  Picture, 
statue,  temple,  railroad,  steam-engine  existed  first  in 
an  artist's  mind,  without  flaw,  mistake,  or  friction, 
which  impair  the  executed  models.  So  did  the 
church,  the  state,  college,  court,  social  circle,  and  all 
the  institutions.  It  is  not  strange  that  these  men, 
remembering  what  they  have  seen  and  hoped  of 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      123 

ideas,  should  affirm  disdainfully  the  superiority  of 
ideas.  Having  at  some  time  seen  that  the  happy 
soul  will  carry  all  the  arts  in  power,  they  say,  Why 
cumber  ourselves  with  superfluous  realizations?  and, 
like  dreaming  beggars,  they  assume  to  speak  and  act 
as  if  these  values  were  already  substantiated. 

On  the  other  part,  the  men  of  toil  and  trade  and 
luxury,  —  the  animal  world,  including  the  animal  in 
the  philosopher  and  poet  also,  —  and  the  practical 
world,  including  the  painful  drudgeries  which  are 
never  excused  to  philosopher  or  poet  any  more  than 
to  the  rest,  —  weigh  heavily  on  the  other  side.  '  The 
trade  in  our  streets  believes  in  no  metaphysical, 
causes,  thinks  nothing  of  the  force  which  necessitated 
traders  and  a  trading  planet  to  exist :  no,  but  sticks 
to  cotton,  sugar,  wool,  and  salt.  The  ward  meet 
ings,  on  election  days,  are  not  softened  by  any  mis 
giving  of  the  value  of  these  ballotings.  Hot  life  is 
streaming  in  a  single  direction.  To  the  men  of  this 
world,  to  the  animal  strength  and  spirits,  to  the  men 
of  practical  power,  whilst  immersed  in  it,  the  man  of 
ideas  appears  out  of  his  reason.  They  alone  have 
reason. 

Things  always  bring  their  own  philosophy  with 
them ;  that  is,  prudence.  No  man  acquires  property 
without  acquiring  with  it  a  little  arithmetic  also.  In 
England,  the  richest  country  that  ever  existed,  prop 
erty  stands  for  more,  compared  with  personal  ability, 
than  in  any  other.  After  dinner,  a  man  believes 
less,  denies  more:  verities  have  lost  some  charm. 
After  dinner,  arithmetic  is  the  only  science :  ideas 
are  disturbing,  incendiary,  follies  of  young  men, 


124  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

repudiated  by  the  solid  portion  of  society ;  and  a 
man  comes  to  be  valued  by  his  athletic  and  animal 
qualities.  Spence  relates,  that  Mr.  Pope  was  with 
Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  one  day,  when  his  nephew,  a 
Guinea  trader,  came  in.  "  Nephew,"  said  Sir 
Godfrey,  "  you  have  the  honor  of  seeing  the  two 
greatest  men  in  the  world."  —  "I  don't  know  how 
great  men  you  may  be,"  said  the  Guinea  man,  "  but 
I  don't  like  your  looks.  I  have  often  bought  a  man 
much  better  than  both  of  you,  all  muscles  and  bones, 
for  ten  guineas."  Thus,  the  men  of  the  senses 
revenge  themselves  on  the  professors,  and  repay 
scorn  for  scorn.  The  first  had  leaped  to  conclusions 
not  yet  ripe,  and  say  more  than  is  true ;  the  others 
make  themselves  merry  with  the  philosopher,  and 
weigh  man  by  the  pound.  They  believe  that  mus 
tard  bites  the  tongue,  that  pepper  is  hot,  friction- 
matches  are  incendiary,  revolvers  to  be  avoided,  and 
suspenders  hold  up  pantaloons ;  that  there  is  much 
sentiment  in  a  chest  of  tea ;  and  a  man  will  be  elo 
quent,  if  you  give  him  good  wine.  Are  you  tender 
and  scrupulous,  —  you  must  eat  more  mince-pie. 
They  hold  that  Luther  had  milk  in  him  when  he 
said, 

"  Wer  nicht  liebt  Wein,  Weib,  und  Gesang, 
Der  bleibt  ein  Narr  sein  Leben  lang ;  " 

and  when  he  advised  a  young  scholar,  per 
plexed  with  fore-ordination  and  free-will,  to  get  well 
drunk.  "  The  nerves,"  says  Cabanis,  "  they  are  the 
man."  My  neighbor,  a  jolly  farmer,  in  the  tavern 
bar-room,  thinks  that  the  use  of  money  is  sure  and 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      125 

speedy  spending.  "  For  his  part,"  he  says,  ««  he 
puts  his  down  his  neck,  and  gets  the  good  of  it." 

The  inconvenience  of  this  way  of  thinking  is,  that 
it  runs  into  indifferentism,  and  then  into  disgust. 
Life  is  eating  us  up.  We  shall  be  fables  presently. 
Keep  cool :  it  will  be  all  one  a  hundred  years  hence. 
Life's  well  enough ;  but  we  shall  be  glad  to  get  out 
of  it,  and  they  will  all  be  glad  to  have  us.  Why 
should  we  fret  and  drudge  ?  Our  meat  will  taste  to 
morrow  as  it  did  yesterday,  and  we  may  at  last  have 
had  enough  of  it.  ««  Ah,"  said  my  languid  gentle 
man  at  Oxford,  "  there's  nothing  new  or  true,  — and 
no  matter." 

With  a  little  more  bitterness,  the  cynic  moans : 
our  life  is  like  an  ass  led  to  market  by  a  bundle  of 
hay  being  carried  before  him :  he  sees  nothing  but 
the  bundle  of  hay.  "There  is  so  much  trouble  in 
coming  into  the  world,"  said  Lord  Bolingbroke,  "  and 
so  miich  more,  as  well  as  meanness,  in  going  out  of 
it,  that  'tis  hardly  worth  while  to  be  here  at  all."  I 
knew  a  philosopher  of  this  kidney,  who  was  accus 
tomed  briefly  to  sum  up  his  experience  of  human 
nature  in  saying,  "Mankind  is  a  damned  rascal;" 
and  the  natural  corollary  is  pretty  sure  to  follow,  — 
"  The  world  lives  by  humbug,  and  so  will  I." 

The  abstractionist  and  the  materialist  thus  mutu 
ally  exasperating  each  other,  and  the  scoffer  express 
ing  the  worst  of  materialism,  there  arises  a  third 
party  to  occupy  the  middle  ground  between  these 
two  ;  the  skeptic,  namely.  He  finds  both  wrong  by 
being  in  extremes.  He  labors  to  plant  his  feet,  to 
be  the  beam  of  the  balance.  He  will  not  go  beyond 


126  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

his  card.  He  sees  the  one-sidedness  of  these  men 
of  the  street ;  he  will  not  be  a  Gibeonite  ;  he  stands 
for  the  intellectual  faculties,  a  cool  head,  and  what 
ever  serves  to  keep  it  cool :  no  unadvised  industry, 
no  unrewarded  self-devotion,  no  loss  of  the  brains  in 
toil.  Am  I  an  ox,  or  a  dray? — You  are  both  in 
extremes,  he  says.  You  that  will  have  all  solid,  and 
a  world  of  pig-lead,  deceive  yourselves  grossly.  You 
believe  yourselves  rooted  and  grounded  on  adamant ; 
and  yet,  if  we  uncover  the  last  facts  of  our  knowledge, 
you  are  spinning  like  bubbles  in  a  river,  you  know 
not  whither  or  whence,  and  you  are  bottomed  and 
capped  and  wrapped  in  delusions. 

Neither  will  he  be  betrayed  to  a  book,  and  wrapped 
in  a  gown.  The  studious  class  are  their  own  victims  : 
they  are  thin  and  pale,  their  feet  are  cold,  their  heads 
are  hot,  the  night  is  without  sleep,  the  day  a  fear  of 
interruption,  —  pallor,  squalor,  hunger,  and  egotism. 
If  you  come  near  them,  and  see  what  conceits  they 
entertain,  —  they  are  abstractionists,  and  spend 
their  days  and  nights  in  dreaming  some  dream  ;  in 
expecting  the  homage  of  society  to  some  precious 
scheme  built  on  a  truth,  but  destitute  of  proportion 
in  its  presentment,  of  justness  in  its  application,  and 
of  all  energy  of  will  in  the  schemer  to  embody  and 
vitalize  it. 

But  I  see  plainly,  he  says,  that  I  cannot  see.  I 
know  that  human  strength  is  not  in  extremes,  but 
in  avoiding  extremes.  I,  at  least,  will  shun  the 
weakness  of  philosophizing  beyond  my  depth.  What 
is  the  use  of  pretending  to  powers  we  have  not? 
What  is  the  use  of  pretending  to  assurances  we  have 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.     127 

not  respecting  the  other  life?  Why  exaggerate  the 
power  of  virtue  ?  Why  be  an  angel  before  your  time  ? 
These  strings,  wound  up  too  high,  will  snap.  If  there 
is  a  wish  for  immortality,  and  no  evidence,  why  not 
say  just  that?  If  there  are  conflicting  evidences,  why 
not  state  them?  If  there  is  not  ground  for  a  candid 
thinker  to  make  up  his  mind,  yea  or  nay,  —  why  not 
suspend  the  judgment?  I  weary  of  these  dogma- 
tizers.  I  tire  of  these  hacks  of  routine,  who  deny  the 
dogmas.  I  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  I  stand  here  to 
try  the  case.  I  am  here  to  consider,  ovcoTreZv,  to  con 
sider  how  it  is.  I  will  try  to  keep  the  balance  true. 
Of  what  use  to  take  the  chair,  and  glibly  rattle  off 
theories  of  society,  religion,  and  nature,  when  I  know 
that  practical  objections  lie  in  the  way,  insurmount 
able  by  me  and  by  my  mates?  Why  so  talkative  in 
public,  when  each  of  my  neighbors  can  pin  me  to  my 
seat  by  arguments  I  cannot  refute?  Why  pretend 
that  life  is  so  simple  a  game,  when  we  know  how 
subtle  and  elusive  the  Proteus  is?  Why  think  to 
shut  up  all  things  in  your  narrow  coop,  when  we  know 
there  are  not  one  or  two  only,  but  ten,  twenty,  a 
thousand  things,  and  unlike?  Why  fancy  that  you 
have  all  the  truth  in  your  keeping?  There  is  much 
to  say  on  all  sides. 

Who  shall  forbid  a  wise  skepticism,  seeing  that 
there  is  no  practical  question  on  which  anything 
more  than  an  approximate  solution  can  be  had?  Is 
not  marriage  an  open  question,  when  it  is  alleged 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  that  such  as  are  in 
the  institution  wish  to  get  out,  and  such  as  are  out 
wish  to  get  in  ?  And  the  reply  of  Socrates  to  him 


128  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

who  asked  whether  he  should  choose  a  wife,  still 
remains  reasonable,  "  that  whether  he  should  choose 
one  or  not,  he  would  repent  it.11  Is  not  the  state  a 
question?  All  society  is  divided  in  opinion  on  the 
subject  of  the  state.  Nobody  loves  it ;  great  numbers 
dislike  it  and  suffer  conscientious  scruples  to  alle 
giance  ;  and  the  only  defence  set  up  is  the  fear  of  do 
ing  worse  in  disorganizing.  Is  it  otherwise  with  the 
church  ?  Or,  to  put  any  of  the  questions  which 
touch  mankind  nearest  —  shall  the  young  man  aim 
at  a  leading  part  in  law,  in  politics,  in  trade  ?  It 
will  not  be  pretended  that  a  success  in  either  of  these 
kinds  is  quite  coincident  with  what  is  best  and  in 
most  in  his  mind.  Shall  he  then,  cutting  the  stays 
that  hold  him  fast  to  the  social  state,  put  out  to  sea 
with  no  guidance  but  his  genius?  There  is  much  to 
say  on  both  sides.  Remember  the  open  question 
between  the  present  order  of  '^competition, "  and  the 
friends  of  "attractive  and  associated  labor."  The 
generous  minds  embrace  the  proposition  of  labor 
shared  by  all ;  it  is  the  only  honesty ;  nothing  else  is 
safe.  It  is  from  the  poor  man^  hut  alone  that 
strength  and  virtue  come ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  side, 
it  is  alleged  that  labor  impairs  the  form  and  breaks 
the  spirit  of  man,  and  the  laborers  cry  unanimously, 
**  We  have  no  thoughts."  Culture,  how  indispen 
sable  !  I  cannot  forgive  you  the  want  of  accomplish 
ments  ;  and  yet  culture  will  instantly  destroy  that 
chiefest  beauty  of  spontaneousness.  Excellent  is 
culture  for  a  savage ;  but  once  let  him  read  in  the 
book  and  he  is  no  longer  able  not  to  think  of  Plu 
tarch's  heroes.  In  short,  since  true  fortitude  of 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      129 

understanding  consists  "  in  not  letting  what  we  know 
be  embarrassed  by  what  we  do  not  know,"  we  ought 
to  secure  those  advantages  which  we  can  command, 
and  not  risk  them  by  clutching  after  the  airy  and  un 
attainable.  Come,  no  chimeras  !  Let  us  go  abroad; 
let  us  mix  in  affairs ;  let  us  learn,  and  get,  and  have, 
and  climb.  "  Men  are  a  sort  of  moving  plants,  and, 
like  trees,  receive  a  great  part  of  their  nourishment 
from  the  air.  If  they  keep  too  much  at  home  they 
pine."  Let  us  have  a  robust,  manly  life  ;  let  us  know 
what  we  know  for  certain ;  what  we  have  let  it  be 
solid  and  seasonable  and  our  own.  A  world  in  the 
hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush.  Let  us  have  to  do 
with  real  men  and  women,  and  not  with  skipping 
ghosts. 

This,  then,  is  the  right  ground  of  the  skeptic  — 
this  of  consideration,  of  self-containing ;  not  at  all  of 
unbelief;  not  at  all  of  universal  denying,  nor  of  uni 
versal  doubting  —  doubting  even  that  he  doubts ; 
least  of  all  of  scoffing  and  profligate  jeering  at  all 
that  is  stable  and  good.  These  are  no  more  his 
moods  than  are  those  of  religion  and  philosophy. 
He  is  the  considerer,  the  prudent,  taking  in  sail, 
counting  stock,  husbanding  his  means,  believing  that 
a  man  has  too  many  enemies  than  that  he  can  afford 
to  be  his  own ;  that  we  can  not  give  ourselves  too 
many  advantages  in  this  unequal  conflict  with  powers 
so  vast  and  unweariable  ranged  on  one  side,  and  this 
little,  conceited,  vulnerable  popinjay  that  a  man  is, 
bobbing  up  and  down  into  every  danger,  on  the 
other.  It  is  a  position  taken  up  for  better  defence,  as 
of  more  safety  and  one  that  can  be  maintained ;  and 


130  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

it  is  one  of  more  opportunity  and  range ;  as,  when 
we  build  a  house  the  rule  is  to  set  it  not  too  high 
nor  too  low  under  the  wind,  but  out  of  the  dirt. 

The  philosophy  we  want  is  one  of  fluxions  and  mo 
bility.  The  Spartan  and  Stoic  schemes  are  too  stark 
and  stiff  for  our  occasion.  A  theory  of  Saint  John 
and  of  non-resistance  seems,  on  the  other  hand,  too 
thin  and  aerial.  We  want  some  coat  woven  of 
elastic  steel,  stout  as  the  first  and  limber  as  the 
second.  We  want  a  ship  in  these  billows  we  inhabit. 
An  angular,  dogmatic  house  would  be  rent  to  chips 
and  splinters  in  this  storm  of  many  elements.  No,  it 
must  be  tight  and  fit  to  the  form  of  man  to  live  at  all ; 
as  a  shell  is  the  architecture  of  a  house  founded  on 
the  sea.  The  soul  of  man  must  be  the  type  of  our 
scheme,  just  as  the  body  of  man  is  the  type  after 
which  a  dwelling-house  is  built.  Adaptiveness  is  the 
peculiarity  of  human  nature.  We  are  golden  aver 
ages,  volitant  stabilities,  compensated  or  periodic 
errors,  houses  founded  on  the  sea.  The  wise  skeptic 
wishes  to  have  a  near  view  of  the  best  game  and  the 
chief  players ;  what  is  best  in  the  planet ;  art  and 
nature,  places  and  events,  but  mainly  men.  Every 
thing  that  is  excellent  in  mankind  —  a  form  of  grace, 
an  arm  of  iron,  lips  of  persuasion,  a  brain  of  re 
sources,  every  one  skilful  to  play  and  win  —  he  will 
see  and  judge. 

The  terms  of  admission  to  this  spectacle  are,  that 
he  have  a  certain  solid  and  intelligible  way  of  living 
of  his  own  ;  some  method  of  answering  the  inevitable 
needs  of  human  life ;  proof  that  he  has  played  with 
skill  and  success ;  that  he  has  evinced  the  temper, 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE  SKEPTIC.      131 

stoutness,  and  the  range  of  qualities  which,  among 
his  contemporaries  and  countrymen,  entitle  him  to 
fellowship  and  trust.  For  the  secrets  of  life  are  not 
shown  except  to  sympathy  and  likeness.  Men  do  not 
confide  themselves  to  boys,  or  coxcombs,  or  pedants, 
but  to  their  peers.  Some  wise  limitation,  as  the 
modern  phrase  is ;  some  condition  between  the  ex 
tremes,  and  having  itself  a  positive  quality ;  some 
stark  and  sufficient  man,  who  is  not  salt  or  sugar, 
but  sufficiently  related  to  the  world  to  do  justice  to 
Paris  or  London,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  vigorous 
and  original  thinker,  whom  cities  cannot  overawe, 
but  who  uses  them,  —  is  the  fit  person  to  occupy  this 
ground  of  speculation. 

These  qualities  meet  in  the  character  of  Mon 
taigne.  And  yet,  since  the  personal  regard  which  I 
entertain  for  Montaigne  may  be  unduly  great,  I  will, 
under  the  shield  of  this  prince  of  egotists,  offer,  as 
an  apology  for  electing  him  as  the  representative  of 
skepticism,  a  word  or  two  to  explain  how  my  love 
began  and  grew  for  this  admirable  gossip. 

A  single  odd  volume  of  Cotton's  translation  of  the 
Essays  remained  to  me  from  my  fathers  library,  when 
a  boy.  It  lay  long  neglected,  until,  after  many  years, 
when  I  was  newly  escaped  from  college,  I  read  the 
book,  and  procured  the  remaining  volumes.  I  re 
member  the  delight  and  wonder  in  which  I  lived  with 
it.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  had  myself  written  the 
book,  in  some  former  life,  so  sincerely  it  spoke  to  my 
thought  and  experience.  It  happened,  when  in  Paris, 
in  1833,  that,  in  the  cemetery  of  Pere  la  Chaise,  I 
came  to  a  tomb  of  Auguste  Collignon,  who  died  in 


132  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

1830,  aged  sixty-eight  years,  and  who,  said  the  monu 
ment,  "lived  to  do  right,  and  had  formed  himself  to 
virtue  on  the  Essays  of  Montaigne."  Some  years 
later  I  became  acquainted  with  an  accomplished 
English  poet,  John  Sterling ;  and,  in  prosecuting  my 
correspondence,  I  found  that,  from  a  love  of  Mon 
taigne,  he  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  his  chateau,  still 
standing  near  Castellan,  in  Perigord,  and,  after  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  had  copied  from  the  walls  of 
his  library  the  inscriptions  which  Montaigne  had 
written  there.  That  Journal  of  Mr.  Sterling's,  pub 
lished  in  the  Westminster  Review,  Mr.  Hazlitt  has 
reprinted  in  the  Prolegomena  to  his  edition  of  the 
Essays.  I  heard  with  pleasure  that  one  of  the  newly- 
discovered  autographs  of  William  Shakspeare  was  in 
a  copy  of  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne.  It  is  the 
only  book  which  we  certainly  know  to  have  been  in 
the  poet's  library.  And,  oddly  enough,  the  duplicate 
copy  of  Florio,  which  the  Britisrt  Museum  purchased, 
with  a  view  of  protecting  the  Shakspeare  autograph 
(as  I  was  informed  in  the  Museum),  turned  out  to 
have  the  autograph  of  Ben  Jonson  in  the  fly-leaf. 
Leigh  Hunt  relates  of  Lord  Byron,  that  Montaigne 
was  the  only  great  writer  of  past  times  whom  he  read 
with  avowed  satisfaction.  Other  coincidences,  not 
needful  to  be  mentioned  here,  concurred  to  make  this 
old  Gascon  still  new  and  immortal  for  me. 

In  1571,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  Montaigne, 
then  thirty-eight  years  old,  retired  from  the  practice 
of  law,  at  Bordeaux,  and  settled  himself  on  his  estate. 
Though  he  had  been  a  man  of  pleasure,  and  some 
times  a  courtier,  his  studious  habits  now  grew  on 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      133 

him,  and  he  loved  the  compass,  staidness,  and  in 
dependence  of  the  country  gentleman's  life.  He 
took  up  his  economy  in  good  earnest,  and  made  his 
farms  yield  the  most.  Downright  and  plain-dealing, 
and  abhorring  to  be  deceived  or  to  deceive,  he  was 
esteemed  in  the  country  for  his  sense  and  probity.  In 
the  civil  wars  of  the  League,  which  converted  every 
house  into  a  fort,  Montaigne  kept  his  gates  open,  and 
his  house  without  defence.  All  parties  freely  came 
and  went,  his  courage  and  honor  being  universally 
esteemed.  The  neighboring  lords  and  gentry  brought 
jewels  and  papers  to  him  for  safe-keeping.  Gibbon 
reckons,  in  these  bigoted  times,  but  two  men  of  lib 
erality  in  France,  —  Henry  IV.  and  Montaigne. 

Montaigne  is  the  frankest  and  honestest  of  all 
writers.  His  French  freedom  runs  into  grossness ; 
but  he  has  anticipated  all  censure  by  the  bounty  of 
his  own  confessions.  In  his  times,  books  were  writ 
ten  to  one  sex  only,  and  almost  all  were  written  in 
Latin ;  so  that,  in  a  humorist,  a  certain  nakedness  of 
statement  was  permitted,  which  our  manners,  of  a 
literature  addressed  equally  to  both  sexes,  do  not 
allow.  But  though  a  biblical  plainness,  coupled 
with  a  most  uncanonical  levity,  may  shut  his  pages 
to  many  sensitive  readers,  yet  the  offence  is  superfi 
cial.  He  parades  it ;  he  makes  the  most  of  it ;  no 
body  can  think  or  say  worse  of  him  than  he  does. 
He  pretends  to  most  of  the  vices  ;  and,  if  there  be  any 
virtue  in  him,  he  says,  it  got  in  by  stealth.  There  is 
no  man,  in  his  opinion,  who  has  not  deserved  hang 
ing  five  or  six  times ;  and  he  pretends  no  exception 
in  his  own  behalf.  "  Five  or  six  as  ridiculous 


134  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

stories,11  too,  he  says,  "  can  be  told  of  me,  as  of  any 
man  living.11  But,  with  all  this  really  superfluous 
frankness,  the  opinion  of  an  invincible  probity  grows 
into  every  reader's  mind. 

' '  When  I  the  most  strictly  and  religiously  confess 
myself,  I  find  that  the  best  virtue  I  have  has  in  it 
some  tincture  of  vice ;  and  I,  who  am  as  sincere  and 
perfect  a  lover  of  virtue  of  that  stamp  as  any  other 
whatever,  am  afraid  that  Plato,  in  his  purest  virtue, 
if  he  had  listened,  and  laid  his  ear  close  to  himself, 
would  have  heard  some  jarring  sound  of  human  mixt 
ure  ;  but  faint  and  remote,  and  only  to  be  perceived 
by  himself." 

Here  is  an  impatience  and  fastidiousness  at  color 
or  pretence  of  any  kind.  He  has  been  in  courts  so 
long  as  to  have  conceived  a  furious  disgust  at  appear 
ances  ;  he  will  indulge  himself  with  a  little  cursing 
and  swearing ;  he  will  talk  with  sailors  and  gypsies, 
use  flash  and  street  ballads ;  he  has  stayed  in-doors 
till  he  is  deadly  sick ;  he  will  to  the  open  air,  though 
it  rain  bullets.  He  has  seen  too  much  of  gentlemen 
of  the  long  robe,  until  he  wishes  for  cannibals ;  and 
is  so  nervous,  by  factitious  life,  that  he  thinks  the 
more  barbarous  man  is,  the  better  he  is.  He  likes 
his  saddle.  You  may  read  theology,  and  grammar, 
and  metaphysics  elsewhere.  Whatever  you  get  here 
shall  smack  of  the  earth  and  of  real  life,  sweet,  or 
smart,  or  stinging.  He  makes  no  hesitation  to  en 
tertain  you  with  the  records  of  his  disease ;  and  his 
journey  to  Italy  is  quite  full  of  that  matter.  He  took 
and  kept  this  position  of  equilibrium.  Over  his 
name  he  drew  an  emblematic  pair  of  scales,  and 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.      135 

wrote  Que  s$ais-je?  under  it.  As  I  look  at  his  effigy 
opposite  the  title-page,  I  seem  to  hear  him  say :  — 
"  You  may  play  old  Poz,  if  you  will ;  you  may  rail  and 
exaggerate,  —  I  stand  here  for  truth,  and  will  not,  for 
all  the  states  and  churches  and  revenues  and  per 
sonal  reputations  of  Europe,  overstate  the  dry  fact, 
as  I  see  it ;  I  will  rather  mumble  and  prose  about 
what  I  certainly  know,  —  my  house  and  barns ;  my 
father,  my  wife,  and  my  tenants ;  my  old  lean  bald 
pate ;  my  knives  and  forks ;  what  meats  I  eat,  and 
what  drinks  I  prefer ;  and  a  hundred  straws  just  as 
ridiculous,  —  than  I  will  write,  with  a  fine  crow-quill, 
a  fine  romance.  I  like  gray  days,  and  autumn  and 
winter  weather.  I  am  gray  and  autumnal  myself, 
and  think  an  undress,  and  old  shoes  that  do  not 
pinch  my  feet,  and  old  friends  who  do  not  constrain 
me,  and  plain  topics  where  I  do  not  need  to  strain 
myself  and  pump  my  brains,  the  most  suitable. 
Our  condition  as  men  is  risky  and  ticklish  enough. 
One  cannot  be  sure  of  himself  and  his  fortune  an 
hour,  but  he  may  be  whisked  off  into  some  pitiable 
or  ridiculous  plight.  Why  should  I  vapor  and  play 
the  philosopher,  instead  of  ballasting,  the  best  I  can, 
this  dancing  balloon?  So,  at  least,  I  live  within 
compass,  keep  myself  ready  for  action,  and  can  shoot 
the  gulf,  at  last,  with  decency.  If  there  be  any 
thing  farcical  in  such  a  life,  the  blame  is  not  mine : 
let  it  lie  at  fate's  and  nature's  door." 

The  Essays,  therefore,  are  an  entertaining  solilo 
quy  on  every  random  topic  that  comes  into  his  head ; 
treating  everything  without  ceremony,  yet  with  mas 
culine  sense.  There  have  been  men  with  deeper 


136  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

insight,  but,  one  would  say,  never  a  man  with  such 
abundance  of  thoughts ;  he  is  never  dull,  never  in 
sincere,  and  has  the  genius  to  make  the  reader  care 
for  all  that  he  cares  for. 

The  sincerity  and  marrow  of  the  man  reaches  to 
his  sentences.  I  know  not  anywhere  the  book  that 
seems  less  written.  It  is  the  language  of  conversation 
transferred  to  a  book.  Cut  these  words,  and  they 
would  bleed  ;  they  are  vascular  and  alive.  One  has 
the  same  pleasure  in  it  that  we  have  in  listening  to 
the  necessary  speech  of  men  about  their  work,  when 
any  unusual  circumstance  gives  momentary  importance 
to  the  dialogue.  For  blacksmiths  and  teamsters  do 
not  trip  in  their  speech  ;  it  is  a  shower  of  bullets.  It 
is  Cambridge  men  who  correct  themselves,  and  begin 
again  at  every  half-sentence,  and,  moreover,  will  pun 
and  refine  too  much,  and  swerve  from  the  matter  to 
the  expression.  Montaigne  talks  with  shrewdness, 
knows  the  world,  and  books,  and  himself,  and  uses 
the  positive  degree ;  never  shrieks,  or  protests,  or 
prays ;  no  weakness,  no  convulsion,  no  superlative  ; 
does  not  wish  to  jump  out  of  his  skin,  or  play  any 
antics,  or  annihilate  space  or  time ;  but  is  stout  and 
solid;  tastes  every  moment  of  the  day;  likes  pain, 
because  it  makes  him  feel  himself,  and  realize  things  ; 
as  we  pinch  ourselves  to  know  that  we  are  awake. 
He  keeps  the  plain  ;  he  rarely  mounts  or  sinks  ;  likes 
to  feel  solid  ground,  and  the  stones  underneath. 
His  writing  has  no  enthusiasms,  no  aspiration ;  con 
tented,  self-respecting,  and  keeping  the  middle  of  the 
road.  There  is  but  one  exception  —  in  his  love  for 
Socrates.  In  speaking  of  him,  for  once  his  cheek 
flushes,  and  his  style  rises  to  passion. 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.       137 

Montaigne  died  of  a  quinsy,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  in 
1592.  When  he  came  to  die,  he  caused  the  mass  to 
be  celebrated  in  his  chamber.  At  the  age  of  thirty- 
three,  he  had  been  married.  "But,"  he  says, 
"  might  I  have  had  my  own  will,  I  would  not  have 
married  Wisdom  herself,  if  she  would  have  had  me ; 
but  'tis  to  much  purpose  to  evade  it,  the  common 
custom  and  use  of  life  will  have  it  so.  Most  of  my 
actions  are  guided  by  example,  not  choice."  In  the 
hour  of  death,  he  gave  the  same  weight  to  custom. 
Que  scais-je  ?  What  do  I  know  ? 

This  book  of  Montaigne  the  world  has  indorsed, 
by  translating  it  into  all  tongues,  and  printing  sev 
enty-five  editions  of  it  in  Europe ;  and  that,  too,  a 
circulation  somewhat  chosen,  namely,  among  court 
iers,  soldiers,  princes,  men  of  the  world,  and  men  of 
wit  and  generosity. 

Shall  we  say  that  Montaigne  has  spoken  wisely, 
and  given  the  right  and  permanent  expression  of  the 
human  mind,  on  the  conduct  of  life  ? 

We  are  natural  believers.  Truth,  or  the  connec 
tion  between  cause  and  effect,  alone  interests  us.  We 
are  persuaded  that  a  thread  runs  through  all  things ; 
all  worlds  are  strung  on  it,  as  beads ;  and  men  and 
events  and  life  come  to  us  only  because  of  that 
thread  ;  they  pass  and  repass  only  that  we  may  know 
the  direction  and  continuity  of  that  line.  A  book  or 
statement  which  goes  to  show  that  there  is  no  line, 
but  random  and  chaos,  a  calamity  out  of  nothing,  a 
prosperity  and  no  account  of  it,  a  hero  born  from  a 


138  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

fool,  a  fool  from  a  hero,  —  dispirits  us.  Seen  or 
unseen,  we  believe  the  tie  exists.  Talent  makes 
counterfeit  ties:  genius  finds  the  real  ones.  We 
hearken  to  the  man  of  science  because  we  anticipate 
the  sequence  in  natural  phenomena  which  he  un 
covers.  We  love  whatever  affirms,  connects,  pre 
serves,  and  dislike  what  scatters  or  pulls  down. 
One  man  appears  whose  nature  is  to  all  men's  eyes 
conserving  and  constructive ;  his  presence  supposes 
a  well-ordered  society,  agriculture,  trade,  large  insti 
tutions,  and  empire.  If  these  did  not  exist,  they 
would  begin  to  exist  through  his  endeavors.  There 
fore,  he  cheers  and  comforts  men,  who  feel  all  this 
in  him  very  readily.  The  non-conformist  and  the 
rebel  say  all  manner  of  unanswerable  things  against 
the  existing  republic,  but  discover  to  our  sense  no 
plan  of  house  or  State  of  their  own.  Therefore, 
though  the  town,  and  State,  and  way  of  living  which 
our  counsellor  contemplated  nfight  be  a  very  modest 
or  musty  prosperity,  yet  men  rightly  go  for  him,  and 
reject  the  reformer,  so  long  as  he  comes  only  with 
axe  and  crowbar. 

But  though  we  are  natural  conservers  and  causa- 
tionists,  and  reject  a  sour,  dumpish  unbelief,  the 
skeptical  class,  which  Montaigne  represents,  have 
reason,  and  every  man,  at  some  time,  belongs  to  it. 
Every  superior  mind  will  pass  through  this  domain 
of  equilibration  —  I  should  rather  say,  will  know 
how  to  avail  himself  of  the  checks  and  balances  in 
nature,  as  a  natural  weapon  against  the  exaggeration 
and  formalism  of  bigots  and  blockheads. 

Skepticism  is  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  student 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE  SKEPTIC.      139 

in  relation  to  the  particulars  which  society  adores, 
but  which  he  sees  to  be  reverend  only  in  their  ten 
dency  and  spirit.  The  ground  occupied  by  the 
skeptic  is  the  vestibule  of  the  temple.  Society  does 
not  like  to  have  any  breath  of  question  blown  on  the 
existing  order.  But  the  interrogation  of  custom  at 
all  points  is  an  inevitable  stage  in  the  growth  of 
every  superior  mind,  and  is  the  evidence  of  its  per 
ception  of  the  flowing  power  which  remains  itself  in 
all  changes. 

The  superior  mind  will  find  itself  equally  at  odds 
with  the  evils  of  society,  and  with  the  projects  that 
are  offered  to  relieve  them.  The  wise  skeptic  is  a 
bad  citizen ;  no  conservative,  he  sees  the  selfishness 
of  property,  and  the  drowsiness  of  institutions.  But 
neither  is  he  fit  to  work  with  any  democratic  party 
that  ever  was  constituted ;  for  parties  wish  every  one 
committed,  and  he  penetrates  the  popular  patriotism. 
His  politics  are  those  of  the  ' «  Soul's  Errand  "  of  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh ;  or  of  Krishna,  in  the  Bhagavat, 
"  There  is  none  who  is  worthy  of  my  love  or 
hatred ;  "  whilst  he  sentences  law,  physic,  divinity, 
commerce,  and  custom.  He  is  a  reformer;  yet  he 
is  no  better  member  of  the  philanthropic  association. 
It  turns  out  that  he  is  not  the  champion  of  the  oper 
ative,  the  pauper,  the  prisoner,  the  slave.  It  stands 
in  his  mind  that  our  life  in  this  world  is  not  of  quite 
so  easy  interpretation  as  churches  and  school-books 
say.  He  does  not  wish  to  take  ground  against  these 
benevolences,  to  play  the  part  of  devil's  attorney, 
and  blazon  every  doubt  and  sneer  that  darkens  the 
sun  for  him,  But  he  says,  There  are  doubts. 


140  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

I  mean  to  use  the  occasion,  and  celebrate  the 
calendar-day  of  our  Saint  Michel  de  Montaigne,  by 
counting  and  describing  these  doubts  or  negations. 
I  wish  to  ferret  them  out  of  their  holes,  and  sun  them 
a  little.  We  must  do  with  them  as  the  police  do 
with  old  rogues,  who  are  shown  up  to  the  public  at 
the  marshal's  office.  They  will  never  be  so  formida 
ble  when  once  they  have  been  identified  and  regis 
tered.  But  I  mean  honestly  by  them  —  that  justice 
shall  be  done  to  their  terrors.  I  shall  not  take 
Sunday  objections,  made  up  on  purpose  to  be  put 
down.  I  shall  take  the  worst  I  can  find,  whether  I 
can  dispose  of  them,  or  they  of  me. 

I  do  not  press  the  skepticism  of  the  materialist. 
I  know  the  quadruped  opinion  will  not  prevail. 
'Tis  of  no  importance  what  bats  and  oxen  think. 
The  first  dangerous  symptom  I  report,  is  the  levity  of 
intellect ;  as  if  it  were  fatal  to  earnestness  to  know 
much.  Knowledge  is  the  knowing  that  we  cannot 
know.  The  dull  pray;  the  geniuses  are  light 
mockers.  How  respectable  is  earnestness  on  every 
platform !  but  intellect  kills  it.  Nay,  San  Carlo,  my 
subtle  and  admirable  friend,  one  of  the  most  pene 
trating  of  men,  finds  that  all  direct  ascension,  even 
of  lofty  piety,  leads  to  this  ghastly  insight,  and  sends 
back  the  votary  orphaned.  My  astonishing  San 
Carlo  thought  the  lawgivers  and  saints  infected. 
They  found  the  ark  empty ;  saw  and  would  not  tell ; 
and  tried  to  choke  off  their  approaching  followers 
by  saying :  —  "  Action,  action,  my  dear  fellows,  is  for 
you ! "  Bad  as  was  to  me  this  detection  by  San 
Carlo,  this  frost  in  July,  this  blow  from  a  bride,  there 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      141 

was  still  a  worse ;  namely,  the  cloy  or  satiety  of  the 
saints.  In  the  mount  of  vision,  ere  they  have  yet 
risen  from  their  knees,  they  say  :  —  "We  discover  that 
this  our  homage  and  beatitude  is  partial  and  deformed  : 
\ve  must  fly  for  relief  to  the  suspected  and  reviled 
Intellect,  to  the  Understanding,  the  Mephistopheles, 
to  the  gymnastics  of  talent." 

This  is  hobgoblin  the  first ;  and,  though  it  has 
been  the  subject  of  much  elegy,  in  our  nineteenth 
century,  from  Byron,  Goethe,  and  other  poets  of  less 
fame,  not  to  mention  many  distinguished  private 
observers,  —  I  confess  it  is  not  very  affecting  to 
my  imagination  ;  for  it  seems  to  concern  the  shatter 
ing  of  baby-houses  and  crockery-shops.  What 
flutters  the  church  of  Rome,  or  of  England,  or  of 
Geneva,  or  of  Boston,  may  yet  be  very  far  from 
touching  any  principle  of  faith.  I  think  that  the 
intellect  and  moral  sentiment  are  unanimous ;  and 
that,  though  philosophy  extirpates  bugbears,  yet  it 
supplies  the  natural  checks  of  vice,  and  polarity  to 
the  soul.  I  think  that  the  wiser  a  man  is,  the  more 
stupendous  he  finds  the  natural  and  moral  economy, 
and  lifts  himself  to  a  more  absolute  reliance. 

There  is  the  power  of  moods,  each  setting  at 
naught  all  but  its  own  tissue  of  facts  and  beliefs. 
There  is  the  power  of  complexions,  obviously  modi 
fying  the  dispositions  and  sentiments.  The  beliefs 
and  unbeliefs  appear  to  be  structural ;  and,  as  soon 
as  each  man  attains  the  poise  and  vivacity  which 
allow  the  whole  machinery  to  play,  he  will  not  need 
extreme  examples,  but  will  rapidly  alternate  all 
opinions  in  his  own  life.  Our  life  is  March 


142  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

weather :    savage  and  serene  in  one   hour.     We  go 
forth  austere,  dedicated,  believing   in   the  iron  links 
of  Destiny,  and  will  not  turn  on  our  heel  to  save  our 
life ;  but  a  book,  or  a  bust,  or  only  the  sound  of  a 
name,  shoots  a  spark  through  the  nerves,  and  we 
suddenly  believe  in  will :   my  finger-ring  shall  be  the 
seal  of  Solomon  ;  fate  is  for  imbeciles  ;  all  is  possible 
to  the  resolved  mind.     Presently,  a  new  experience 
gives  a  new  turn  to   our   thoughts :    common  sense 
resumes  its  tyranny;  we  say:  —  "Well,  the  army, 
after  all,  is  the  gate  to  fame,  manners,  and  poetry ; 
and,  look  you,  on  the  whole,  selfishness  plants  best, 
prunes  best,  makes  the  best  commerce,  and  the  bes 
citizen."     Are  the  opinions  of  a  man  on  right  and 
wrong,    on   fate    and  causation,  at  the  mercy  of  a 
broken  sleep  or  an  indigestion?     Is  his  belief  in  Gc 
and  Duty  no  deeper  than  a  stomach  evidence?     Am 
what  guaranty  for  the  permanence  of  his  opinions! 
I  like  not  the  French  celerity,  —  a  new  Church  anc 
State  once  a  week.     This  is  the  second  negation 
and  I   shall  let  it  pass  for  what  it  will.     As  far  as 
asserts  rotation  of  states  of  mind,  I  suppose  it  sug 
gests  its  own  remedy ;  namely,  in  the  record  of  large 
periods.     What  is  the  mean  of  many  states  ;    of 
the  states?     Does  the  general  voice  of  ages  affin 
any  principle,  or  is  no  community  of  sentiment  dis 
coverable  in  distant  times  and  places?     And  when  it 
shows  the  power  of  self-interest,  I  accept  that  as  pi 
of  the  divine  law,  and  must  reconcile  it  with  aspi 
ration  the  best  I  can. 

The  word  Fate,  or  Destiny,  expresses  the  sens 
of  mankind  in  all  ages,  —  that  the  laws  of  the  worl< 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE  SKEPTIC.      143 

do  not  always  befriend,  but  often  hurt  and  crush  us. 
Fate,  in  the  shape  of  Kinde  or  nature,  grows  over  us 
like  grass.  We  paint  Time  with  a  scythe  ;  Love  and 
Fortune,  blind ;  and  Destiny,  deaf.  We  have  too 
little  power  of  resistance  against  this  ferocity  which 
champs  us  up.  What  front  can  we  make  against 
these  unavoidable,  victorious,  maleficent  forces? 
What  can  I  do  against  the  influence  of  Race,  in  my 
history?  What  can  I  do  against  hereditary  and 
constitutional  habits,  against  scrofula,  lymph,  im 
potence?  against  climate,  against  barbarism,  in  my 
country?  I  can  reason  down  or  deny  everything 
except  this  perpetual  Belly :  feed  he  must  and  will, 
and  I  cannot  make  him  respectable. 

But  the  main  resistance  which  the  affirmative  im 
pulse  finds,  and  one  including  all  others,  is  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Illusionists.  There  is  a  painful 
rumor  in  circulation,  that  we  have  been  practised 
upon  in  all  the  principal  performances  of  life,  and  free 
agency  is  the  emptiest  name.  We  have  been  sopped 
and  drugged  with  the  air,  with  food,  with  woman, 
with  children,  with  sciences,  with  events,  which  leave 
us  exactly  where  they  found  us.  The  mathematics, 
'tis  complained,  leave  the  mind  where  they  find  it : 
so  do  all  sciences ;  and  so  do  all  events  and  actions. 
I  find  a  man  who  has  passed  through  all  the  sciences, 
the  churl  he  was  ;  and,  through  all  the  offices,  learned, 
civil,  and  social,  can  detect  the  child.  We  are  not 
the  less  necessitated  to  dedicate  life  to  them.  In 
fact,  we  may  come  to  accept  it  as  the  fixed  rule  and 
theory  of  our  state  of  education  that  God  is  a  sub- 


144  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

stance  and  his  method  is  illusion.  The  Eastern  sages 
owned  the  goddess  Yoganidra,  the  great  illusory 
energy  of  Vishnu,  by  whom,  as  utter  ignorance,  the 
whole  world  is  beguiled. 

Or,  shall  I  state  it  thus  ?  —  The  astonishment  of 
life  is  the  absence  of  any  appearance  of  reconciliation 
between  the  theory  and  practice  of  life.  Reason, 
the  prized  reality,  the  Law,  is  apprehended  now  and 
then  for  a  serene  and  profound  moment,  amidst  the 
hubbub  of  cares  and  works  which  have  no  direct 
bearing  on  it ; —  is  then  lost  for  months  or  years,  and 
again  found  for  an  interval  to  be  lost  again.  If  we 
compute  it  in  time  we  may,  in  fifty  years,  have  half  a 
dozen  reasonable  hours.  But  what  are  these  cares 
and  works  the  better?  A  method  in  the  world  we 
do  not  see,  but  this  parallelism  of  great  and  little, 
which  never  react  on  each  other  nor  discover  the 
smallest  tendency  to.  converge.  Experiences,  for 
tunes,  governings,  readings, 'writings,  are  nothing 
to  the  purpose ;  as  when  a  man  comes  into  the 
room  it  does  not  appear  whether  he  has  been  fed  on 
yams  or  buffalo,  —  he  has  contrived  to  get  so  much 
bone  and  fibre  as  he  wants,  out  of  rice  or  out  of  snow. 
So  vast  is  the  disproportion  between  the  sky  of  law 
and  the  pismire  of  performance  under  it,  that  whether 
he  is  a  man  of  worth  or  a  sot  is  not  so  great  a  matter 
as  we  say.  Shall  I  add,  as  one  juggle  of  this  en 
chantment,  the  stunning  non-intercourse  law  which 
makes  cooperation  impossible?  The  young  spirit 
pants  to  enter  society.  But  all  the  ways  of  culture 
and  greatness  lead  to  solitary  imprisonment.  He 
has  been  often  balked.  He  did  not  expect  a  sym- 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      145 

pathy  with  his  thought  from  the  village,  but  he  went 
with  it  to  the  chosen  and  intelligent  and  found  no 
entertainment  for  it  but  mere  misapprehension,  dis 
taste,  and  scoffing.  Men  are  strangely  mistimed  and 
misapplied  ;  and  the  excellence  of  each  is  an  inflamed 
individualism  which  separates  him  more. 

There  are  these  and  more  than  these  diseases  of 
thought  which  our  ordinary  teachers  do  not  attempt 
to  remove.  Now  shall  we,  because  a  good  nature 
inclines  us  to  virtue's  side,  say,  There  are  no  doubts 
—  and  lie  for  the  right  ?  Is  life  to  be  led  in  a  brave 
or  in  a  cowardly  manner?  and  is  not  the  satisfaction 
of  the  doubts  essential  to  all  manliness?  Is  the 
name  of  virtue  to  be  a  barrier  to  that  which  is  virtue  ? 
Can  you  not  believe  that  a  man  of  earnest  and  burly 
habit  may  find  small  good  in  tea,  essays,  and  cate 
chism,  and  want  a  rougher  instruction,  want  men, 
labor,  trade,  farming,  war,  hunger,  plenty,  love, 
hatred,  doubt,  and  terror,  to  make  things  plain  to 
him ;  and  has  he  not  a  right  to  insist  on  being  con 
vinced  in  his  own  way?  When  he  is  convinced  he 
will  be  worth  the  pains. 

Belief  consists  in  accepting  the  affirmations  of  the 
soul ;  unbelief,  in  denying  them.  Some  minds  are 
incapable  of  skepticism.  The  doubts  they  profess  to 
entertain  are  rather  a  civility  or  accommodation  to 
the  common  discourse  of  their  company.  They  may 
well  give  themselves  leave  to  speculate,  for  they  are 
secure  of  a  return.  Once  admitted  to  the  heaven  of 
thought,  they  see  no  relapse  into  night,  but  infinite 
invitation  on  the  other  side.  Heaven  is  within 
heaven,  and  sky  over  sky,  and  they  are  encompassed 


146  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

with  divinities.  Others  there  are,  to  whom  the 
heaven  is  brass,  and  it  shuts  down  to  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  It  is  a  question  of  temperament,  or  of 
more  or  less  immersion  in  nature.  The  last  class 
must  needs  have  a  reflex  or  parasite  faith  ;  not  a  sight 
of  realities,  but  an  instinctive  reliance  on  the  seers 
and  believers  of  realities.  The  manners  and  thoughts 
of  believers  astonish  them,  and  convince  them 
that  these  have  seen  something  which  is  hid  from 
themselves.  But  their  sensual  habit  would  fix  the 
believer  to  his  last  position,  whilst  he  as  inevitably 
advances;  and  presently  the  unbeliever,  for  love  of 
belief,  burns  the  believer. 

Great  believers  are  always  reckoned  infidels,  im 
practicable,  fantastic,  atheistic,  and  really  men  of  no 
account.  The  spiritualist  finds  himself  driven  to  ex 
press  his  faith  by  a  series  of  skepticisms.  Charitable 
souls  come  with  their  projects,  and  ask  his  coopera 
tion.  How  can  he  hesitate?  It  is  the  rule  of  mere 
comity  and  courtesy  to  agree  where  you  can,  and  to 
turn  your  sentence  with  something  auspicious,  and 
not  freezing  and  sinister.  But  he  is  forced  to  say  :  — 
"  O,  these  things  will  be  as  they  must  be :  what  can 
you  do?  These  particular  griefs  and  crimes  are  the 
foliage  and  fruit  of  such  trees  as  we  see  growing.  It 
is  vain  to  complain  of  the  leaf  or  the  berry ;  cut  it 
off:  it  will  bear  another  just  as  bad.  You  must  begin 
your  cure  lower  down."  The  generosities  of  the  day 
prove  an  intractable  element  for  him.  The  people's 
questions  are  not  his ;  their  methods  are  not  his ; 
and  against  all  the  dictates  of  good  nature  he  is 
driven  to  say,  he  has  no  pleasure  in  them. 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      147 

Even  the  doctrines  dear  to  the  hope  of  man,  of 
the  divine  Providence,  and  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  his  neighbors  cannot  put  the  statement  so 
that  he  shall  affirm  it.  But  he  denies  out  of  more 
faith  and  not  less.  He  denies  out  of  honesty. 
He  had  rather  stand  charged  with  the  imbecility  of 
skepticism  than  with  untruth.  I  believe,  he  says, 
in  the  moral  design  of  the  universe ;  it  exists  hospi 
tably  for  the  weal  of  souls ;  but  your  dogmas  seem  to 
me  caricatures:  why  should  I  make  believe  them? 
Will  any  say,  this  is  cold  and  infidel  ?  The  wise  and 
magnanimous  will  not  say  so.  They  will  exult  in 
his  far-sighted  good-will,  that  can  abandon  to  the 
adversary  all  the  ground  of  tradition  and  common 
belief,  without  losing  a  jot  of  strength.  It  sees  to 
the  end  of  all  transgression.  George  Fox  saw  "  that 
there  was  an  ocean  of  darkness  and  death ;  but,  with 
al,  an  infinite  ocean  of  light  and  love  which  flowed 
over  that  of  darkness.11 

The  final  solution  in  which  skepticism  is  lost  is 
in  the  moral  sentiment,  which  never  forfeits  its  su 
premacy.  All  moods  may  be  safely  tried,  and  their 
weight  allowed  to  all  objections  ;  the  moral  sentiment 
as  easily  outweighs  them  all,  as  any  one.  This  is 
the  drop  which  balances  the  sea.  I  play  with  the 
miscellany  of  facts,  and  take  those  superficial  views 
which  we  call  skepticism  ;  but  I  know  that  they  will 
presently  appear  to  me  in  that  order  which  makes 
skepticism  impossible.  A  man  of  thought  must  feel 
the  thought  that  is  parent  of  the  universe :  that  the 
masses  of  nature  do  undulate  and  flow. 

This  faith  avails  to  the  whole  emergency  of  life 


148  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  objects.  The  world  is  saturated  with  deity  and 
with  law.  He  is  content  with  just  and  unjust,  with 
sots  and  fools,  with  the  triumph  of  folly  and  fraud. 
He  can  behold  with  serenity  the  yawning  gulf  be 
tween  the  ambition  of  man  and  his  power  of  per 
formance,  between  the  demand  and  supply  of  power, 
which  makes  the  tragedy  of  all  souls. 

Charles  Fourier  announced  that  "the  attractions 
of  man  are  proportioned  to  his  destinies;"  in  other 
words,  that  every  desire  predicts  its  own  satisfaction. 
Yet  all  experience  exhibits  the  reverse  of  this ;  the 
incompetency  of  power  is  the  universal  grief  of  young 
and  ardent  minds.  They  accuse  the  divine  providence 
of  a  certain  parsimony.  It  has  shown  the  heaven 
and  earth  to  every  child,  and  filled  him  with  a  desire 
for  the  whole  ;  a  desire  raging,  infinite  ;  a  hunger,  as 
of  space  to  be  filled  with  planets ;  a  cry  of  famine,  as 
of  devils  for  souls.  Then  for  the  satisfaction,  —  to 
each  man  is  administered  a  single  drop,  a  bead  of 
dew  of  vital  power,  per  day,  —  a  cup  as  large  as 
space,  and  one  drop  of  the  water  of  life  in  it.  Each 
man  woke  in  the  morning,  with  an  appetite  that 
could  eat  the  solar  system  like  a  cake ;  a  spirit  for 
action  and  passion  without  bounds  ;  he  could  lay  his 
hand  on  the  morning  star ;  he  could  try  conclusions 
with  gravitation  or  chemistry ;  but,  on  the  first 
motion  to  prove  his  strength,  —  hands,  feet,  senses, 
gave  way,  and  would  not  serve  him.  He  was  an  em 
peror  deserted  by  his  states,  and  left  to  whistle  by 
himself,  or  thrust  into  a  mob  of  emperors  all  whis 
tling;  and  still  the  sirens  sang:  —  "  The  attractions 
are  proportioned  to  the  destinies."  In  every  house,  in 


MONTAIGNE;    OR,    THE   SKEPTIC.      149 

the  heart  of  each  maiden  and  of  each  boy,  in  the  soul 
of  the  soaring  saint,  this  chasm  is  found,  —  between 
the  largest  promise  of  ideal  power,  and  the  shabby 
experience. 

The  expansive  nature  of  truth  comes  to  our  succor, 
elastic,  not  to  be  surrounded.  Man  helps  himself  by 
larger  generalizations.  The  lesson  of  life  is  practi 
cally  to  generalize ;  to  believe  what  the  years  and  the 
centuries  say  against  the  hours ;  to  resist  the  usur 
pation  of  particulars ;  to  penetrate  to  their  catholic 
sense.  Things  seem  to  say  one  thing,  and  say  the 
reverse.  The  appearance  is  immoral ;  the  result  is 
moral.  Things  seem  to  tend  downward,  to  justify 
despondency,  to  promote  rogues,  to  defeat  the  just ; 
and  by  knaves,  as  by  martyrs,  the  just  cause  is 
carried  forward.  Although  knaves  win  in  every  polit 
ical  struggle,  although  society  seems  to  be  delivered 
over  from  the  hands  of  one  set  of  criminals  into  the 
hands  of  another  set  of  criminals  as  fast  as  the  gov 
ernment  is  changed,  and  the  march  of  civilization  is 
a  train  of  felonies,  yet  general  ends  are  somehow 
answered.  We  see  now  events  forced  on  which 
seem  to  retard  or  retrograde  the  civility  of  ages.  But 
the  world-spirit  is  a  good  swimmer,  and  storms  and 
waves  cannot  drown  him.  He  snaps  his  finger  at 
laws ;  and  so,  throughout  history,  heaven  seems  to 
affect  low  and  poor  means.  Through  the  years  and 
the  centuries,  through  evil  agents,  through  toys  and 
atoms,  a  great  and  beneficent  tendency  irresistibly 
streams. 

Let  a  man  learn  to  look  for  the  permanent  in  the 
mutable  and  fleeting ;  let  him  learn  to  bear  the  dis- 


150  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

appearance  of  things  he  was  wont  to  reverence,  with 
out  losing  his  reverence  ;  let  him  learn  that  he  is  here, 
not  to  work,  but  to  be  worked  upon  ;  and  that,  though 
abyss  open  under  abyss  and  opinion  displace  opinion, 
all  are  at  last  contained  in  the  Eternal  Cause :  — 

"  If  my  bark  sink,  'tis  to  another  sea." 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,   THE    POET 


050 


SHAKSPEARE. 
(The  Stratford  Portrait.) 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         153 

V. 

SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE   POET. 


GREAT  men  are  more  distinguished  by  range  and 
extent  than  by  originality.  If  we  require  the  origi 
nality  which  consists  in  weaving,  like  a  spider,  their 
web  from  their  own  bowels ;  in  finding  clay,  and 
making  bricks,  and  building  the  house, — no  great  men 
are  original.  Nor  does  valuable  originality  consist  in 
unlikeness  to  other  men.  The  hero  is  in  the  press  of 
knights  and  the  thick  of  events ;  and,  seeing  what 
men  want  and  sharing  their  desire,  he  adds  the  need 
ful  length  of  sight  arid  of  arm  to  come  at  the  desired 
point.  The  greatest  genius  is  the  most  indebted 
man.  A  poet  is  no  rattle-brain,  saying  what  comes 
uppermost,  and,  because  he  says  everything,  saying, 
at  last,  something  good ;  but  a  heart  in  unison  with 
his  time  and  country.  There  is  nothing  whimsical 
and  fantastic  in  his  production,  but  sweet  and  sad 
earnest,  freighted  with  the  weightiest  convictions,  and 
pointed  with  the  most  determined  aim  which  any  man 
or  class  knows  of  in  his  times. 

The  genius  of  our  life  is  jealous  of  individuals,  and 
will  not  have  any  individual  great,  except  through 
the  general.  There  is  no  choice  to  genius.  A  great 
man  does  not  wake  up  on  some  fine  morning,  and 


154  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

say :  —  "I  am  full  of  life,  I  will  go  to  sea,  and  find  an 
antarctic  continent ;  to-day  I  will  square  the  circle  ; 
I  will  ransack  botany,  and  find  a  new  food  for  man ; 
I  have  a  new  architecture  in  my  mind  ;  I  foresee  a  new 
mechanic  power.11  No,  but  he  finds  himself  in  the 
river  of  the  thoughts  and  events,  forced  onward  by 
the  ideas  and  necessities  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
stands  where  all  the  eyes  of  men  look  one  way,  and 
their  hands  all  point  in  the  direction  in  which  he 
should  go.  The  Church  has  reared  him  amidst  rites 
and  pomps,  and  he  carries  out  the  advice  which  her 
music  gave  him,  and  builds  a  cathedral  needed  by  her 
chants  and  processions.  He  finds  a  war  raging ;  it 
educates  him,  by  trumpet,  in  barracks,  and  he  betters 
the  instruction.  He  finds  two  counties  groping  to 
bring  coal,  or  flour,  or  fish  from  the  place  of  produc 
tion  to  the  place  of  consumption,  and  he  hits  on  a 
railroad.  Every  master  has  found  his  materials  col 
lected,  and  his  power  lay  in  his  sympathy  with  his 
people,  and  in  his  love  of  the  materials  he  wrought  in. 
What  an  economy  of  power  !  and  what  a  compensa 
tion  for  the  shortness  of  life  !  All  is  done  to  his 
hand.  The  world  has  brought  him  thus  far  on  his 
way.  The  human  race  has  gone  out  before  him, 
sunk  the  hills,  filled  the  hollows,  and  bridged  the 
rivers.  Men,  nations,  poets,  artisans,  women,  all 
have  worked  for  him,  and  he  enters  into  their  labors. 
Choose  any  other  thing,  out  of  the  line  of  tendency, 
out  of  the  national  feeling  and  history,  and  he  would 
have  all  to  do  for  himself;  his  powers  would  be  ex 
pended  in  the  first  preparations.  Great  genial  power, 
one  would  almost  say,  consists  in  not  being  original 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         155 

at  all ;  in  being  altogether  receptive ;  in  letting  the 
world  do  all,  and  suffering  the  spirit  of  the  hour  to 
pass  unobstructed  through  the  mind. 

Shakspeare^  youth  fell  in  a  time  when  the  English 
people  were  importunate  for  dramatic  entertainments. 
The  court  took  offence  easily  at  political  allusions, 
and  attempted  to  suppress  them.  The  Puritans,  a 
growing  and  energetic  party,  and  the  religious  among 
the  Anglican  church,  would  suppress  them.  But  the 
people  wanted  them.  Inn-yards,  houses  without  roofs, 
and  extemporaneous  enclosures  at  country  fairs  were 
the  ready  theatres  of  strolling  players.  The  peo 
ple  had  tasted  this  new  joy ;  and  as  we  could  not 
hope  to  suppress  newspapers  now,  —  no,  not  by  the 
strongest  party,  —  neither  then  could  king,  prelate, 
or  puritan,  alone  or  united,  suppress  an  organ  which 
was  ballad,  epic,  newspaper,  caucus,  lecture,  Punch, 
and  library,  at  the  same  time.  Probably  king,  prel 
ate,  and  puritan  all  found  their  own  account  in  it. 
It  had  become,  by  all  causes,  a  national  interest  — 
by  no  means  conspicuous,  so  that  some  great  scholar 
would  have  thought  of  treating  it  in  an  English  his 
tory,  but  not  a  whit  less  considerable  because  it 
was  cheap  and  of  no  account,  like  a  bakerVshop. 
The  best  proof  of  its  vitality  is  the  crowd  of  writers 
which  suddenly  broke  into  this  field  :  Kyd,  Marlow, 
Greene,  Jonson,  Chapman,  Dekker,  Webster,  Hey- 
wood,  Middleton,  Peele,  Ford,  Massinger,  Beaumont, 
and  Fletcher. 

The  secure  possession,  by  the  stage,  of  the  public 
mind  is  of  the  first  importance  to  the  poet  who  works 
for  it.  He  loses  no  time  in  idle  experiments.  Here 


156  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

is  audience  and  expectation  prepared.  In  the  case  of 
Shakspeare  there  is  much  more.  At  the  time  when 
he  left  Stratford  and  went  up  to  London,  a  great 
body  of  stage  plays,  of  all  dates  and  writers,  existed 
in  manuscript,  and  were  in  turn  produced  on  the 
boards.  Here  is  the  Tale  of  Troy,  which  the  audi 
ence  will  bear  hearing  some  part  of,  every  week  ;  the 
Death  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  other  stories  out  of  Plu 
tarch,  which  they  never  tire  of;  a  shelf  full  of  English 
history,  from  the  chronicles  of  Brut  and  Arthur,  down 
to  the  royal  Henrys,  which  men  hear  eagerly ;  and  a 
string  of  doleful  tragedies,  merry  Italian  tales,  and 
Spanish  voyages,  which  all  the  London  'prentices 
know.  All  the  mass  has  been  treated,  with  more  or 
less  skill,  by  every  playwright,  and  the  prompter  has 
the  soiled  and  tattered  manuscripts.  It  is  now  no 
longer  possible  to  say  who  wrote  them  first.  They 
have  been  the  property  of  the  theatre  so  long,  and 
so  many  rising  geniuses  havfe  enlarged  or  altered 
them,  inserting  a  speech  or  a  whole  scene,  or  adding  a 
song,  that  no  man  can  any  longer  claim  copyright  on 
this  work  of  numbers.  Happily,  no  man  wishes  to. 
They  are  not  yet  desired  in  that  way.  We  have  few 
readers,  many  spectators  and  hearers.  They  had  best 
lie  where  they  are. 

Shakspeare,  in  common  with  his  comrades,  es 
teemed  the  mass  of  old  plays  waste  stock,  in  which 
any  experiment  could  be  freely  tried.  Had  the 
prestige  which  hedges  about  a  modern  tragedy  ex 
isted,  nothing  could  have  been  done.  The  rude  warm 
blood  of  the  living  England  circulated  in  the  play  as 
in  street-ballads,  and  gave  body  which  he  wanted 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         1 57 

to  his  airy  and  majestic  fancy.  The  poet  needs  a 
ground  in  popular  tradition  on  which  he  may  work, 
and  which  again  may  restrain  his  art  within  the  due 
temperance.  It  holds  him  to  the  people,  supplies  a 
foundation  for  his  edifice  ;  and,  in  furnishing  so  much 
work  done  to  his  hand,  leaves  him  at  leisure  and  in 
full  strength  for  the  audacities  of  his  imagination. 
In  short,  the  poet  owes  to  his  legend  what  sculpture 
owed  to  the  temple.  Sculpture  in  Egypt  and  in 
Greece  grew  up  in  subordination  to  architecture.  It 
was  the  ornament  of  the  temple  wall :  at  first  a  rude 
relief  carved  on  pediments,  then  the  relief  became 
bolder,  and  a  head  or  arm  was  projected  from  the 
wall,  the  groups  being  still  arrayed  with  reference  to 
the  building,  which  serves  also  as  a  frame  to  hold  the 
figures ;  and  when  at  last  the  greatest  freedom  of 
style  and  treatment  was  reached,  the  prevailing  genius 
of  architecture  still  enforced  a  certain  calmness  and 
continence  in  the  statue.  As  soon  as  the  statiie 
was  begun  for  itself,  and  with  no  reference  to  the 
temple  or  palace,  the  art  began  to  decline :  freak,  ex 
travagance,  and  exhibition  took  the  place  of  the  old 
temperance.  This  balance-wheel  which  the  sculptor 
found  in  architecture,  the  perilous  irritability  of  poetic 
talent  found  in  the  accumulated  dramatic  materials 
to  which  the  people  were  already  wonted,  and  which 
had  a  certain  excellence  which  no  single  genius, 
however  extraordinary,  could  hope  to  create. 

In  point  of  fact,  it  appears  that  Shakspeare  did 
owe  debts  in  all  directions,  and  was  able  to  use  what 
ever  he  found  ;  and  the  amount  of  indebtedness  may 
be  inferred  from  Malone's  laborious  computations  in 


158  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

regard  to  the  First,  Second,  and  Third  parts  of 
Henry  VI.,  in  which  "out  of  6,043  lines,  1,771  were 
written  by  some  author  preceding  Shakspeare  ;  2,373 
by  him  on  the  foundation  laid  by  his  predecessors ; 
and  i, 899  were  entirely  his  own."  And  the  proceed 
ing  investigation  hardly  leaves  a  single  drama  of  his 
absolute  invention.  Malone's  sentence  is  an  impor 
tant  piece  of  external  history.  In  Henry  VIII.  I 
think  I  see  plainly  the  cropping  out  of  the  original 
rock  on  which  his  own  finer  stratum  was  laid.  The 
first  play  was  written  by  a  superior,  thoughtful  man 
with  a  vicious  ear.  I  can  mark  his  lines  and  know 
well  their  cadence.  See  Wolsey's  soliloquy  and  the 
following  scene  with  Cromwell,  where,  instead  of 
the  metre  of  Shakspeare,  —  whose  secret  is  that  the 
thought  constructs  the  tune,  so  that  reading  for 
the  sense  will  best  bring  out  the  rhythm,  —  here  the 
lines  are  constructed  on  a  given  tune  and  the  verse 
has  even  a  trace  of  pulpit  eloquence.  But  the  play 
contains  through  all  its  length  unmistakable  traits 
of  Shakspeare's  hand,  and  some  passages,  as  the  ac 
count  of  the  coronation,  are  like  autographs.  What 
is  odd,  the  compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth  is  in  the 
bad  rhythm. 

Shakspeare  knew  that  tradition  supplies  a  better 
fable  than  any  invention  can.  If  he  lost  any  credit 
of  design  he  augmented  his  resources ;  and  at  that 
day  our  petulant  demand  for  originality  was  not  so 
much  pressed.  There  was  no  literature  for  the 
million.  The  universal  reading,  the  cheap  press, 
were  unknown.  A  great  poet  who  appears  in  illit 
erate  times  absorbs  into  his  sphere  all  the  light 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         159 

which  is  anywhere  radiating.  Every  intellectual 
jewel,  every  flower  of  sentiment,  it  is  his  fine  office  to 
bring  to  his  people ;  and  he  comes  to  value  his  mem 
ory  equally  with  his  invention.  He  is  therefore  little 
solicitous  whence  his  thoughts  have  been  derived 
—  whether  through  translation,  whether  through 
tradition,  whether  by  travel  in  distant  countries, 
whether  by  inspiration ;  from  whatever  source,  they 
are  equally  welcome  to  his  uncritical  audience.  Nay, 
he  borrows  very  near  home.  Other  men  say  wise 
things  as  well  as  he ;  only  they  say  a  good  many 
foolish  things,  and  do  not  know  when  they  have 
spoken  wisely.  He  knows  the  sparkle  of  the  true 
stone,  and  puts  it  in  high  place  wherever  he  finds  it. 
Such  is  the  happy  position  of  Homer,  perhaps ;  of 
Chaucer,  of  Saadi.  They  felt  that  all  wit  was  their 
wit.  And  they  are  librarians  and  historiographers  as 
well  as  poets.  Each  romancer  was  heir  and  dis 
penser  of  all  the  hundred  tales  of  the  world,  — 

"  Presenting  Thebes'  and  Pelops*  line, 
And  the  tale  of  Troy  divine." 

The  influence  of  Chaucer  is  conspicuous  in  all  our 
early  literature ;  and,  more  recently,  not  only  Pope 
and  Dryden  have  been  beholden  to  him,  but,  in  the 
whole  society  of  English  writers,  a  large  unacknowl 
edged  debt  is  easily  traced.  One  is  charmed  with 
the  opulence  which  feeds  so  many  pensioners.  But 
Chaucer  is  a  huge  borrower.  Chaucer,  it  seems, 
drew  continually,  through  Lydgate  and  Caxton,  from 
Guido  di  Colonna,  whose  Latin  romance  of  the  Tro 
jan  war  was  in  turn  a  compilation  from  Dares  Phry- 


I  Go  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

gius,  Ovid,  and  Statius.  Then  Petrarch,  Boccaccio, 
and  the  Proven9al  poets  are  his  benefactors :  the 
Romaunt  of  the  Rose  is  only  judicious  translation 
from  William  of  Lorris  and  John  of  Meung ;  Troilus 
and  Creseide,  from  Lollius  of  Urbino ;  The  Cock 
and  the  Fox,  from  the  Lais  of  Marie ;  The  House 
of  Fame,  from  the  French  or  Italian;  and  poor 
Govver  he  uses  as  if  he  were  only  a  brick-kiln  or 
stone-quarry,  out  of  which  to  build  his  house. 
He  steals  by  this  apology  —  that  what  he  takes 
has  no  worth  where  he  finds  it,  and  the  greatest 
where  he  leaves  it.  It  has  come  to  be  practically 
a  sort  of  rule  in  literature,  that  a  man  having  once 
shown  himself  capable  of  original  writing  is  entitled 
thenceforth  to  steal  from  the  writings  of  others  at 
discretion.  Thought  is  the  property  of  him  who  can 
entertain  it,  and  of  him  who  can  adequately  place  it. 
A  certain  awkwardness  marks  the  use  of  borrowed 
thoughts ;  but  as  soon  as  we  frave  learned  what  to 
do  with  them  they  become  our  own. 

Thus  all  originality  is  relative.  Every  thinker  is 
retrospective.  The  learned  member  of  the  legislat 
ure,  at  Westminster  or  at  Washington,  speaks  and 
votes  for  thousands.  Show  us  the  constituency,  and 
the  now  invisible  channels  by  which  the  senator  is 
made  aware  of  their  wishes,  the  crowd  of  practical 
and  knowing  men  who,  by  correspondence  or  con 
versation,  are  feeding  him  with  evidence,  anecdotes, 
and  estimates,  and  it  will  bereave  his  fine  attitude 
and  resistance  of  something  of  their  impressiveness. 
As  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Webster  vote,  so  Locke 
and  Rousseau  think  for  thousands ;  and  so  there 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,    THE  POET.        1 6 1 

were  fountains  all  around  Homer,  Menu,  Saadi,  or 
Milton  from  which  they  drew  ;  friends,  lovers,  books, 
traditions,  proverbs,  —  all  perished,  —  which,  if  seen, 
would  go  to  reduce  the  wonder.  Did  the  bard 
speak  with  authority?  Did  he  feel  himself  over 
matched  by  any  companion?  The  appeal  is  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  writer.  Is  there  at  last  in  his 
breast  a  Delphi  whereof  to  ask  concerning  any 
thought  or  thing,  whether  it  be  verily  so,  yea  or 
nay?  and  to  have  answer,  and  to  rely  on  that?  All 
the  debts  which  such  a  man  could  contract  to  other 
wit  would  never  disturb  his  consciousness  of  origi 
nality  ;  for  the  ministrations  of  books,  and  of  other 
minds,  are  a  whiff  of  smoke  to  that  most  private 
reality  with  which  he  has  conversed. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  what  is  best  written  or  done 
by  genius,  in  the  world,  was  no  man's  work,  but 
came  by  wide  social  labor,  when  a  thousand  wrought 
like  one,  sharing  the  same  impulse.  Our  English 
Bible  is  a  wonderful  specimen  of  the  strength  and 
music  of  the  English  language.  But  it  was  not  made 
by  one  man,  or  at  one  time ;  but  centuries  and 
churches  brought  it  to  perfection.  There  never  was 
a  time  when  there  was  not  some  translation  existing. 
The  Liturgy,  admired  for  its  energy  and  pathos,  is  an 
anthology  of  the  piety  of  ages  and  nations,  a  transla 
tion  of  the  prayers  and  forms  of  the  Catholic  church, 
—  these  collected,  too,  in  long  periods,  from  the 
prayers  and  meditations  of  every  saint  and  sacred 
writer  all  over  the  world.  Grotius  makes  the  like  re 
mark  in  respect  to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  that  the  single 
clauses  of  which  it  is  composed  were  already  in  use, 


1 62  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

in  the  time  of  Christ,  in  the  rabbinical  forms.  He 
picked  out  the  grains  of  gold.  The  nervous  language 
of  the  Common  Law,  the  impressive  forms  of  our 
courts,  and  the  precision  and  substantial  truth  of 
the  legal  distinctions  are  the  contribution  of  all  the 
sharp-sighted,  strong-minded  men  who  have  'lived  in 
the  countries  where  these  laws  govern.  The  trans 
lation  of  Plutarch  gets  its  excellence  by  being  transla 
tion  on  translation.  There  never  was  a  time  when 
there  was  none.  All  the  truly  idiomatic  and 
national  phrases  are  kept,  and  all  others  succes 
sively  picked  out,  and  thrown  away.  Something  like 
the  same  process  had  gone  on,  long  before,  with  the 
originals  of  these  books.  The  world  takes  liberties 
with  world-books.  Vedas,  yEsop^  Fables,  Pilpay, 
Arabian  Nights,  Cid,  Iliad,  Robin  Hood,  Scottish 
Minstrelsy,  are  not  the  work  of  single  men.  In 
the  composition  of  such  works,  the  time  thinks, 
the  market  thinks,  the  mason,  the  carpenter,  the 
merchant,  the  farmer,  the  fop,  all  think  for  us. 
Every  book  supplies  its  time  with  one  good  word ; 
every  municipal  law,  every  trade,  every  folly  of 
the  day,  and  the  generic  catholic  genius  who  is  not 
afraid  or  ashamed  to  owe  his  originality  to  the 
originality  of  all  stands  with  the  next  age  as  the 
recorder  and  embodiment  of  his  own. 

We   have  to  thank  the  researches  of  antiquaries 
and  the  Shakspeare  Society  for  ascertaining  the  stej 
of  the  English  drama,  from  the  mysteries  celebrate! 
in  churches  and  by  churchmen,  and  the  final  detach 
ment  from  the  Church,  and  the  completion  of  secuh 
plays  from  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  and  Gammer  Gurtoivs 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         163 

Needle,  down  to  the  possession  of  the  stage  by  the 
very  pieces  which  Shakspeare  altered,  remodelled, 
and  finally  made  his  own.  Elated  with  success,  and 
piqued  by  the  growing  interest  of  the  problem,  they 
have  left  no  book-stall  unsearched,  no  chest  in  a 
garret  unopened,  no  file  of  old  yellow  accounts  to 
decompose  in  damp  and  worms,  so  keen  was  the 
hope  to  discover  whether  the  boy  Shakspeare  poached 
or  not,  whether  he  held  horses  at  the  theatre  door, 
whether  he  kept  school,  and  why  he  left  in  his  will 
only  his  second-best  bed  to  Anne  Hathaway,  his  wife. 
There  is  somewhat  touching  in  the  madness  with 
which  the  passing  age  mischooses  the  object  on  which 
all  candles  shine  and  all  eyes  are  turned ;  the  care 
with  which  it  registers  every  trifle  touching  Queen 
Elizabeth,  and  King  James,  and  the  Essexes,  Leices- 
ters,  Burleighs,  and  Buckinghams  ;  and  lets  pass  with 
out  a  single  valuable  note  the  founder  of  another 
dynasty  which  alone  will  cause  the  Tudor  dynasty 
to  be  remembered  —  the  man  who  carries  the  Saxon 
race  in  him  by  the  inspiration  which  feeds  him,  and 
on  whose  thoughts  the  foremost  people  of  the  world 
are  now  for  some  ages  to  be  nourished,  and  minds  to 
receive  this  and  not  another  bias.  A  popular  player 
—  nobody  suspected  he  was  the  poet  of  the  human 
race  ;  and  the  secret  was  kept  as  faithfully  from  poets 
and  intellectual  men  as  from  courtiers  and  frivolous 
p20ple.  Bacon,  who  took  the  inventory  of  the  human 
understanding  for  his  times,  never  mentioned  his 
name.  Ben  Jonson,  though  we  have  strained  his 
few  words  of  regard  and  panegyric,  had  no  suspicion 
of  the  elastic  fame  whose  first  vibrations  he  was  at- 


164  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tempting.  He  no  doubt  thought  the  praise  he  has 
conceded  to  him  generous,  and  esteemed  himself, 
out  of  all  question,  the  better  poet  of  the  two. 

If  it  need  wit  to  know  wit,  according  to  the  prov 
erb,  Shakspeare's  time  should  be  capable  of  recog 
nizing  it.  Sir  Henry  Wotton  was  born  four  years 
after  Shakspeare,  and  died  twenty-three  years  after 
him ;  and  I  find  among  his  correspondents  and  ac 
quaintances  the  following  persons :  Theodore  Beza, 
Isaac  Casaubon,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Earl  of  Essex, 
Lord  Bacon,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  John  Milton,  Sir 
Henry  Vane,  Isaac  Walton,  Dr.  Donne,  Abraham 
Cowley,  Bellarmine,  Charles  Cotton,  John  Pym,  John 
Hales,  Kepler,  Vieta,  Albericus  Gentilis,  Paul  Sarpi, 
Arminius ;  with  all  of  whom  exists  some  token  of  his 
having  communicated,  without  enumerating  many 
others  whom  doubtless  he  saw,  —  Shakspeare, 
Spenser,  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Massinger,  two  Her 
berts,  Marlow,  Chapman,  and  the  rest.  Since  the 
constellation  of  great  men  who  appeared  in  Greece 
in  the  time  of  Pericles,  there  was  never  any  such 
society ;  yet  their  genius  failed  them  to  find  out  the 
best  head  in  the  universe.  Our  poet1s  mask  was  im 
penetrable.  You  cannot  see  the  mountain  near.  It 
took  a  century  to  make  it  suspected  ;  and  not  until  two 
centuries  had  passed  after  his  death  did  any  criticism 
which  we  think  adequate  begin  to  appear.  It  was 
not  possible  to  write  the  history  of  Shakspeare  till 
now,  for  he  is  the  father  of  German  literature  ;  it  was 
on  the  introduction  of  Shakspeare  into  German  by 
Lessing,  and  the  translation  of  his  works  by  Wieland 
and  Schlegel,  that  the  rapid  burst  of  German  litera- 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         165 

ture  was  most  intimately  connected.  It  was  not  until 
the  nineteenth  century,  whose  speculative  genius  is  a 
sort  of  living  Hamlet,  that  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet 
could  find  such  wondering  readers.  Now,  literature, 
philosophy,  and  thought  are  Shakspearized.  His 
mind  is  the  horizon  beyond  which,  at  present,  we  do 
not  see.  Our  ears  are  educated  to  music  by  his 
rhythm.  Coleridge  and  Goethe  are  the  only  critics 
who  have  expressed  our  convictions  with  any  ade 
quate  fidelity ;  but  there  is  in  all  cultivated  minds 
a  silent  appreciation  of  his  superlative  power  and 
beauty,  which,  like  Christianity,  qualifies  the  period. 
The  Shakspeare  Society  have  inquired  in  all  di 
rections,  advertised  the  missing  facts,  offered  money 
for  any  information  that  will  lead  to  proof,  and  with 
what  result?  Beside  some  important  illustration  of 
the  history  of  the  English  stage,  to  which  I  have  ad 
verted,  they  have  gleaned  a  few  facts  touching  the 
property,  and  dealings  in  regard  to  property,  of  the 
poet.  It  appears  that,  from  year  to  year,  he  owned 
a  larger  share  in  the  Blackfriars'  Theatre  ;  its  ward 
robe  and  other  appurtenances  were  his ;  that  he 
bought  an  estate  in  his  native  village,  with  his  earn 
ings  as  writer  and  shareholder ;  that  he  lived  in  the 
best  house  in  Stratford ;  was  intrusted  by  his  neigh 
bors  with  their  commissions  in  London,  as  of  bor 
rowing  money  and  the  like ;  that  he  was  a  veritable 
farmer.  About  the  time  when  he  was  writing  Mac 
beth,  he  sues  Philip  Rogers,  in  the  borough-court  of 
Stratford,  for  thirty-five  shillings  ten  pence,  for  corn 
delivered  to  him  at  different  times ;  and,  in  all  re 
spects,  appears  as  a  good  husband,  with  no  reputation 


1 66  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

for  eccentricity  or  excess.  He  was  a  good-natured 
sort  of  man,  an  actor  and  shareholder  in  the  theatre, 
not  in  any  striking  manner  distinguished  from  other 
actors  and  managers.  I  admit  the  importance  of  this 
information.  It  was  well  worth  the  pains  that  have 
been  taken  to  procure  it. 

But  whatever  scraps  of  information  concerning  his 
condition  these  researches  may  have  rescued,  they 
can  shed  no  light  upon  that  infinite  invention  which 
is  the  concealed  magnet  of  his  attraction  for  us. 
We  are  very  clumsy  writers  of  history.  We  tell  the 
chronicle  of  parentage,  birth,  birthplace,  schooling, 
schoolmates,  earning  of  money,  marriage,  publica 
tion  of  books,  celebrity,  death ;  and  when  we  have 
come  to  an  end  of  this  gossip,  no  ray  of  relation  ap 
pears  between  it  and  the  goddess-born  ;  and  it  seems 
as  if,  had  we  dipped  at  random  into  the  "  Modern 
Plutarch,"  and  read  any  other  life  there,  it  would 
have  fitted  the  poems  as  wellf  It  is  the  essence  of 
poetry  to  spring,  like  the  rainbow  daughter  of  Wonder, 
from  the  invisible,  to  abolish  the  past,  and  refuse 
all  history.  Malone,  Warburton,  Dyce,  and  Collier 
have  wasted  their  oil.  The  famed  theatres,  Covent 
Garden,  Drury  Lane,  the  Park  and  Tremont,  have 
vainly  assisted.  Betterton,  Garrick,  Kemble,  Kean, 
and  Macready  dedicate  their  lives  to  this  genius ; 
him  they  crown,  elucidate,  obey,  and  express.  The 
genius  knows  them  not.  The  recitation  begins ;  one 
golden  word  leaps  out  immortal  from  all  this  painted 
pedantry,  and  sweetly  torments  us  with  invitations 
to  its  own  inaccessible  homes.  I  remember  I  went 
once  to  see  the  Hamlet  of  a  famed  performer,  the 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         167 

pride  of  the  English  stage ;  and  all  I  then  heard, 
and  all  I  now  remember,  of  the  tragedian  was  that 
in  which  the  tragedian  had  no  part :  simply  Ham 
let's  question  to  the  ghost,  — 

"  What  may  this  mean, 

That  thou,  dead  corse,  again  in  complete  steel 
Revisit'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon?  " 

That  imagination  which  dilates  the  closet  he  writes 
in  to  the  world's  dimension,  crowds  it  with  agents 
in  rank  and  order,  as  quickly  reduces  the  big  reality 
to  be  the  glimpses  of  the  moon.  These  tricks  of 
his  magic  spoil  for  us  the  illusions  of  the  greenroom. 
Can  any  biography  shed  light  on  the  localities  into 
which  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  admits  me? 
Did  Shakspeare  confide  to  any  notary  or  parish 
recorder,  sacristan,  or  surrogate,  in  Stratford,  the 
genesis  of  that  delicate  creation?  The  forest  of 
Arden,  the  nimble  air  of  Scone  Castle,  the  moon 
light  of  Portia's  villa,  "  the  antres  vast  and  desarts 
idle "  of  Othello's  captivity  —  where  is  the  third 
cousin,  or  grand-nephew,  the  chancellor's  file  of 
accounts,  or  private  letter,  that  has  kept  one  word 
of  those  transcendent  secrets?  In  fine,  in  this 
drama,  as  in  all  great  works  of  art,  —  in  the  Cyclo- 
paean  architecture  of  Egypt  and  India,  in  the 
Phidian  sculpture,  the  Gothic  minsters,  the  Italian 
painting,  the  ballads  of  Spain  and  Scotland,  —  the 
genius  draws  up  the  ladder  after  him  when  the 
creative  age  goes  up  to  heaven  and  gives  way  to  a 
new,  who  see  the  works,  and  ask  in  vain  for  a 
history. 


1 68  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Shakspeare  is  the  only  biographer  of  Shak- 
speare;  and  even  he  can  tell  nothing,  except  to  the 
Shakspeare  in  us ;  that  is,  to  our  most  apprehen 
sive  and  sympathetic  hour.  He  cannot  step  from 
off  his  tripod,  and  give  us  anecdotes  of  his  inspira 
tions.  Read  the  antique  documents  extricated, 
analyzed,  and  compared  by  the  assiduous  Dyce 
and  Collier;  and  now  read  one  of  those  skyey 
sentences  —  aerolites  —  which  seem  to  have 
fallen  out  of  heaven,  and  which  not  your  expe 
rience,  but  the  man  within  the  breast,  has  accepted 
as  words  of  fate ;  and  tell  me  if  they  match ;  if 
the  former  account  in  any  manner  for  the  latter; 
or  which  gives  the  most  historical  insight  into  the 
man. 

Hence,  though  our  external  history  is  so  mea 
gre,  yet,  with  Shakspeare  for  biographer,  instead 
of  Aubrey  and  Rowe,  we  have  really  the  informa 
tion  which  is  material,  that  whi/eh  describes  character 
and  fortune,  that  which,  if  we  were  about  to  meet 
the  man  and  deal  with  him,  would  most  import 
us  to  know.  We  have  his  recorded  convictions  on 
those  questions  which  knock  for  answer  at  every 
heart  —  on  life  and  death,  on  love,  on  wealth  and 
poverty,  on  the  prizes  of  life,  and  the  ways  whereby 
we  come  at  them ;  on  the  characters  of  men,  and  the 
influences,  occult  and  open,  which  affect  their  fort 
unes ;  and  on  those  mysterious  and  demoniacal 
powers  which  defy  our  science,  and  which  yet  inter 
weave  their  malice  and  their  gift  in  our  brightest 
hours.  Who  ever  read  the  volume  of  the  Sonnets 
without  finding  that  the  poet  had  there  revealed, 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         169 

under  masks  that  are  no  masks  to  the  intelligent,  the 
lore  of  friendship  and  of  love ;  the  confusion  of 
sentiments  in  the  most  susceptible,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  most  intellectual,  of  men?  What 
trait  of  his  private  mind  has  he  hidden  in  his 
dramas?  One  can  discern,  in  his  ample  pictures 
of  the  gentleman  and  the  king,  what  forms  and 
humanities  pleased  him;  his  delight  in  troops  of 
friends,  in  large  hospitality,  in  cheerful  giving. 
Let  Timon,  let  Warwick,  let  Antonio  the  mer 
chant,  answer  for  his  great  heart.  So  far  from 
Shakspeare's  being  the  least  known,  he  is  the  one 
person,  in  all  modern  history,  known  to  us.  What 
point  of  morals,  of  manners,  of  economy,  of  philoso 
phy,  of  religion,  of  taste,  of  the  conduct  of  life,  has 
he  not  settled?  What  mystery  has  he  not  signified 
his  knowledge  of?  What  office,  or  function,  or 
district  of  man's  work  has  he  not  remembered? 
What  king  has  he  not  taught  state,  as  Talma  taught 
Napoleon?  What  maiden  has  not  found  him  finer 
than  her  delicacy  ?  What  lover  has  he  not  outloved  ? 
What  sage  has  he  not  outseen?  What  gentleman 
has  he  not  instructed  in  the  rudeness  of  his  be 
havior  ? 

Some  able  and  appreciating  critics  think  no  criti 
cism  on  Shakspeare  valuable  that  does  not  rest 
purely  on  the  dramatic  merit ;  that  he  is  falsely 
judged  as  poet  and  philosopher.  I  think  as  highly 
as  these  critics  of  his  dramatic  merit,  but  still  think 
it  secondary.  He  was  a  full  man,  who  liked  to  talk ; 
a  brain  exhaling  thoughts  and  images,  which,  seek 
ing  vent,  found  the  drama  next  at  hand.  Had  he 


170  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

been  less,  we  should  have  had  to  consider  how  well 
he  filled  his  place,  how  good  a  dramatist  he  was,  — 
and  he  is  the  best  in  the  world.  But  it  turns  out 
that  what  he  has  to  say  is  of  that  weight  as  to  with 
draw  some  attention  from  the  vehicle ;  and  he  is  like 
some  saint  whose  history  is  to  be  rendered  into  all 
languages,  into  verse  and  prose,  into  songs  and  pict 
ures,  and  cut  up  into  proverbs ;  so  that  the  occa 
sion  which  gave  the  saint's  meaning  the  form  of  a 
conversation,  or  of  a  prayer,  or  of  a  code  of  laws,  is 
immaterial,  compared  with  the  universality  of  its 
application.  So  it  fares  with  the  wise  Shakspeare 
and  his  book  of  life.  He  wrote  the  airs  for  all  our 
modern  music  ;  he  wrote  the  text  of  modern  life  :  the 
text  of  manners ;  he  drew  the  man  of  England  and 
Europe  :  the  father  of  the  man  in  America  ;  he  drew 
the  man,  and  described  the  day,  and  what  is  done  in 
it ;  he  read  the  hearts  of  men  and  women,  their 
probity,  and  their  second  thought,  and  wiles :  the 
wiles  of  innocence,  and  the  transitions  by  which 
virtues  and  vices  slide  into  their  contraries ;  he  could 
divide  the  mother's  part  from  the  father's  part  in  the 
face  of  the  child,  or  draw  the  fine  demarcations  of 
freedom  and  of  fate  ;  he  knew  the  laws  of  repression 
which  make  the  police  of  nature ;  and  all  the  sweets 
and  all  the  terrors  of  human  lot  lay  in  his  mind  as 
truly  but  as  softly  as  the  landscape  lies  on  the  eye. 
And  the  importance  of  this  wisdom  of  life  sinks  the 
form,  as,  of  Drama  or  Epic,  out  of  notice.  Tis  like 
making  a  question  concerning  the  paper  on  which  a 
king's  message  is  written. 

Shakspeare  is  as  much  out  of  the  category  of  emi- 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         1 71 

nent  authors  as  he  is  out  of  the  crowd.  He  is  in 
conceivably  wise ;  the  others  conceivably.  A  good 
reader  can,  in  a  sort,  nestle  into  Plato^  brain,  and 
think  from  thence  ;  but  not  into  Shakspeare's.  We 
are  still  out  of  doors.  For  executive  faculty,  for 
creation,  Shakspeare  is  unique.  No  man  can  imag 
ine  it  better.  He  was  the  farthest  reach  of  subtlety 
compatible  with  an  individual  self,  —  the  subtilest  of 
authors,  and  only  just  within  the  possibility  of 
authorship.  With  this  wisdom  of  life  is  the  equal 
endowment  of  imaginative  and  of  lyric  power.  He 
clothed  the  creatures  of  his  legend  with  form  and 
sentiments,  as  if  they  were  people  who  had  lived 
under  his  roof;  and  few  real  men  have  left  such 
distinct  characters  as  these  fictions.  And  they 
spoke  in  language  as  sweet  as  it  was  fit.  Yet  his 
talents  never  seduced  him  into  an  ostentation,  nor 
did  he  harp  on  one  string.  An  omnipresent  human 
ity  co-ordinates  all  his  faculties.  Give  a  man  of 
talents  a  story  to  tell,  and  his  partiality  will  presently 
appear.  He  has  certain  observations,  opinions, 
topics,  which  have  some  accidental  prominence,  and 
which  he  disposes  all  to  exhibit.  He  crams  this 
part,  and  starves  that  other  part,  consulting  not  the 
fitness  of  the  thing,  but  his  fitness  and  strength. 
But  Shakspeare  has  no  peculiarity,  no  importunate 
topic  ;  but  all  is  duly  given  :  no  veins,  no  curiosities  ; 
no  cow-painter,  no  bird-fancier,  no  mannerist  is  he  ; 
he  has  no  discoverable  egotism;  the  great  he  tells 
greatly,  the  small  subordinately.  He  is  wise  with 
out  emphasis  or  assertion ;  he  is  strong,  who  lifts  the 
land  into  mountain  slopes  without  effort,  and  by  the 


172  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

same  rule  as  she  floats  a  bubble  in  the  air.  and  likes 
as  well  to  do  the  one  as  the  other.  This  makes  that 
equality  of  power  in  farce,  tragedy,  narrative,  and 
love-songs ;  a  merit  so  incessant,  that  each  reader  is 
incredulous  of  the  perception  of  other  readers. 

This  power  of  expression,  or  of  transferring  the 
inmost  truth  of  things  into  music  and  verse,  makes 
him  the  type  of  the  poet,  and  has  added  a  new  prob 
lem  to  metaphysics.  This  is  that  which  throws  him 
into  natural  history,  as  a  main  production  of  the 
globe,  and  as  announcing  new  eras  and  ameliora 
tions.  Things  were  mirrored  in  his  poetry  without 
loss  or  blur;  he  could  paint  the  fine  with  precision, 
the  great  with  compass ;  the  tragic  and  the  comic  in 
differently,  and  without  any  distortion  or  favor.  He 
carried  his  powerful  execution  into  minute  details,  to 
a  hair  point ;  finishes  an  eyelash  or  a  dimple  as 
firmly  as  he  draws  a  mountain ;  and  yet  these,  like 
nature's,  will  bear  the  scrutiny  of  the  solar  mi 
croscope. 

In  short,  he  is  the  chief  example  to  prove  that 
more  or  less  of  production,  more  or  fewer  pictures  is 
a  thing  indifferent.  He  had  the  power  to  make  one 
picture.  Daguerre  learned  how  to  let  one  flower 
etch  its  image  on  his  plate  of  iodine ;  and  then  pro 
ceeds  at  leisure  to  etch  a  million.  There  are  always 
objects ;  but  there  was  never  representation.  Here 
is  perfect  representation,  at  last ;  and  now  let  the 
world  of  figures  sit  for  their  portraits.  No  recipe 
can  be  given  for  the  making  of  a  Shakspeare ;  but 
the  possibility  of  the  translation  of  things  into  song 
is  demonstrated. 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         1 73 

His  lyric  power  lies  in  the  genius  of  the  piece. 
The  sonnets,  though  their  excellence  is  lost  in  the 
splendor  of  the  dramas,  are  as  inimitable  as  they; 
and  it  is  not  a  merit  of  lines,  but  a  total  merit  of  the 
piece ;  like  the  tone  of  voice  of  some  incomparable 
person,  so  is  this  a  speech  of  poetic  beings,  and  any 
clause  as  unproducible  now  as  a  whole  poem. 

Though  the  speeches  in  the  play  and  single  lines 
have  a  beauty  which  tempts  the  ear  to  pause  on  them 
for  their  euphuism,  yet  the  sentence  is  so  loaded  with 
meaning,  and  so  linked  with  its  foregoers  and  fol 
lowers,  that  the  logician  is  satisfied.  His  means  are 
as  admirable  as  his  ends ;  every  subordinate  inven 
tion,  by  which  he  helps  himself  to  connect  some 
irreconcilable  opposites,  is  a  poem  too.  He  is  not 
reduced  to  dismount  and  walk,  because  his  horses 
are  running  off  with  him  in  some  distant  direction : 
he  always  rides.  v 

The  finest  poetry  was  first  experience;  but  the 
thought  has  suffered  a  transformation  since  it  was 
an  experience.  Cultivated  men  often  attain  a  good 
degree  of  skill  in  writing  verses ;  but  it  is  easy  to 
read,  through  their  poems,  their  personal  history; 
any  one  acquainted  with  parties  can  name  every  fig 
ure  :  this  is  Andrew,  and  that  is  Rachel.  The  sense 
thus  remains  prosaic.  It  is  a  caterpillar  with  wings, 
and  not  yet  a  butterfly.  In  the  poet's  mind  the  fact 
has  gone  quite  over  into  the  new  element  of  thought, 
and  has  lost  all  that  is  exuvial.  This  generosity 
abides  with  Shakspeare.  We  say,  from  the  truth 
and  closeness  of  his  pictures,  that  he  knows  the  les 
son  by  heart.  Yet  there  is  not  a  trace  of  egotism. 


1 74  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

One  more  royal  trait  properly  belongs  to  the  poet. 
I  mean  his  cheerfulness,  without  which  no  man  can 
be  a  poet, —  for  beauty  is  his  aim.  He  loves  virtue, 
not  for  its  obligation  but  for  its  grace ;  he  delights 
in  the  world,  in  man,  in  woman,  for  the  lovely  light 
that  sparkles  from  them.  Beauty,  the  spirit  of  joy 
and  hilarity,  he  sheds  over  the  universe.  Epicurus 
relates  that  poetry  hath  such  charms  that  a  lover 
might  forsake  his  mistress  to  partake  of  them.  And 
the  true  bards  have  been  noted  for  their  firm  and 
cheerful  temper.  Homer  lies  in  sunshine ;  Chaucer 
is  glad  and  erect;  and  Saadi  says,  "  It  was  rumored 
abroad  that  I  was  penitent ;  but  what  had  I  to  do 
with  repentance?"  Not  less  sovereign  and  cheerful, 
—  much  more  sovereign  and  cheerful  is  the  tone  of 
Shakspeare.  His  name  suggests  joy  and  emancipa 
tion  to  the  heart  of  men.  If  he  should  appear  in  any 
company  of  human  souls,  who  would  not  march  in 
his  troop?  He  touches  nothing  that  does  not  bor 
row  health  and  longevity  from  his  festal  style. 

And  now,  how  stands  the  account  of  man  with 
this  bard  and  benefactor,  when  in  solitude,  shut 
ting  our  ears  to  the  reverberations  of  his  fame,  we 
seek  to  strike  the  balance?  Solitude  has  austere 
lessons ;  it  can  teach  us  to  spare  both  heroes  and 
poets;  and  it  weighs  Shakspeare  also,  and  finds 
him  to  share  the  halfness  and  imperfection  of  hu 
manity. 

Shakspeare,  Homer,  Dante,  Chaucer,  saw  the 
splendor  of  meaning  that  plays  over  the  visible 
world;  knew  that  a  tree  had  another  use  than 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         175 

for  apples,  and  corn  another  than  for  meal,  and 
the  ball  of  the  earth  than  for  tillage  and  roads; 
that  these  things  bore  a  second  and  finer  harvest 
to  the  mind,  being  emblems  of  its  thoughts,  and 
conveying  in  all  their  natural  history  a  certain 
mute  commentary  on  human  life.  Shakspeare 
employed  them  as  colors  to  compose  his  picture. 
He  rested  in  their  beauty ;  and  never  took  the 
step  which  seemed  inevitable  to  such  genius; 
namely,  to  explore  the  virtue  which  resides  in 
these  symbols,  and  imparts  this  power: — what  is 
that  which  they  themselves  say?  He  converted 
the  elements,  which  waited  on  his  command,  into 
entertainments.  He  was  master  of  the  revels  to 
mankind.  Is  it  not  as  if  one  should  have,  through 
majestic  powers  of  science,  the  comets  given  into 
his  hand,  or  the  planets  and  their  moons,  and 
should  draw  them  from  their  orbits  to  glare  with 
the  municipal  fireworks  on  a  holiday  night,  and 
advertise  in  all  towns  :  —  "  Very  superior  pyrotechny 
this  evening ! "  Are  the  agents  of  nature,  and 
the  power  to  undertand  them,  worth  no  more 
than  a  street  serenade,  or  the  breath  of  a  cigar? 
One  remembers  again  the  trumpet-text  in  the 
Koran:  —  ««  The  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  all 
that  is  between  them,  think  ye  we  have  created 
them  in  jest?"  As  long  as  the  question  is  of 
talent  and  mental  power,  the  world  of  men  has 
not  his  equal  to  show.  But  when  the  question 
is  to  life,  and  its  materials,  and  its  auxiliaries,  how 
does  he  profit  me?  What  does  it  signify?  It  is 
but  a  Twelfth  Night,  or  Midsummer-Night's 


176  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Dream,  or  a  Winter  Evening's  Tale ;  what  sig 
nifies  another  picture  more  or  less  ?  The  Egyptian 
verdict  of  the  Shakspaare  Societies  comes  to  mind, 
that  he  was  a  jovial  actor  and  manager.  I  cannot 
marry  this  fact  to  his  verse.  Other  admirable  men 
have  led  lives  in  some  sort  of  keeping  with  their 
thought ;  but  this  man,  in  wide  contrast.  Had  he 
been  less,  had  he  reached  only  the  common  meas 
ure  of  great  authors,  of  Bacon,  Milton,  Tasso,  Cer 
vantes,  we  might  leave  the  fact  in  the  twilight  of 
human  fate ;  but,  that  this  man  of  men,  he  who 
gave  to  the  science  of  mind  a  new  and  larger  sub 
ject  than  had  ever  existed,  and  planted  the  standard 
of  humanity  some  furlongs  forward  into  Chaos,  — 
that  he  should  not  be  wise  for  himself,  —  it  must 
even  go  into  the  world's  history,  that  the  best  poet 
led  an  obscure  and  profane  life,  using  his  genius  for 
the  public  amusement. 

Well,  other  men,  priest  and  prophet,  Israelite, 
German,  and  Swede,  beheld  the  same  objects ;  they 
also  saw  through  them  that  which  was  contained. 
And  to  what  purpose?  The  beauty  straightway 
vanished;  they  read  commandments,  all-excluding 
mountainous  duty;  an  obligation,  a  sadness,  as  of 
piled  mountains,  fell  on  them,  and  life  became 
ghastly,  joyless,  a  pilgrim's  progress,  a  probation, 
beleaguered  round  with  doleful  histories  of  Adam's 
fall  and  curse  behind  us ;  with  doomsdays  and 
purgatorial  and  penal  fires  before  us;  and  the 
heart  of  the  seer  and  the  heart  of  the  listener  sank 
in  them. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  these  are  half-views  of 


SHAKSPEARE;    OR,    THE  POET.         Iff 

half-men.  The  world  still  wants  its  poet-priest,  a 
reconciler,  who  shall  not  trifle,  with  Shakspeare  the 
player,  nor  shall  grope  in  graves,  with  Swedenborg 
the  mourner ;  but  who  shall  see,  speak,  and  act 
with  equal  inspiration.  For  knowledge  will  brighten 
the  sunshine ;  right  is  more  beautiful  than  private 
affection;  and  love  is  compatible  with  universal 
wisdom. 


, 


NAPOLEON;    OR,   THE   MAN   OF   THE 
WORLD 


(179) 


NAPOLEON     AT    JENA. 
(From  a  painting  by  Horace  Vernet  in  the  Palace  at  Versailles.) 


NAPOLEON.  I  Si 


VI. 

NAPOLEON;    OR,    THE   MAN   OF   THE 
WORLD. 


AMONG  the  eminent  persons  of  the  nineteenth  cent 
ury,  Bonaparte  is  far  the  best  known,  and  the  most 
powerful,  and  owes  his  predominance  to  the  fidelity 
with  which  he  expresses  the  tone  of  thought  and  be 
lief,  the  aims  of  the  masses  of  active  and  cultivated 
men.  It  is  Swedenborg's  theory,  that  every  organ 
is  made  up  of  homogeneous  particles,  or,  as  it  is 
sometimes  expressed,,  every  whole  is  made  of  simi 
lars  ;  that  is,  the  lungs  are  composed  of  infinitely 
small  lungs,  the  liver  of  infinitely  small  livers,  the 
kidney  of  little  kidneys,  etc.  Following  this  analogy, 
if  any  man  is  found  to  carry  with  him  the  power  and 
affections  of  vast  numbers,  if  Napoleon  is  France,  if 
Napoleon  is  Europe,  it  is  because  the  people  whom 
he  sways  are  little  Napoleons. 

In  our  society  there  is  a  standing  antagonism  be 
tween  the  conservative  and  the  democratic  classes ; 
between  those  who  have  made  their  fortunes  and  the 
young  and  the  poor  who  have  fortunes  to  make ;  be 
tween  the  interests  of  dead  labor  —  that  is,  the  labor 
of  hands  long  ago  still  in  the  grave,  which  labor  is 
now  entombed  in  money  stocks,  or  in  land  and 


182  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

buildings  owned  by  idle  capitalists,  —  and  the  in 
terests  of  living  labor  which  seeks  to  possess  itself 
of  land  and  buildings,  and  money  stocks.  The  first 
class  is  timid,  selfish,  illiberal,  hating  innovation,  and 
continually  losing  numbers  by  death.  The  second 
class  is  selfish  also,  encroaching,  bold,  self-relying, 
always  outnumbering  the  other,  and  recruiting  its 
numbers  every  hour  by  births.  It  desires  to  keep 
open  every  avenue  to  the  competition  of  all,  and  to 
multiply  avenues,  —  the  class  of  business  men  in 
America,  in  England,  in  France,  and  throughout 
Europe,  the  class  of  industry  and  skill.  Napoleon  is 
its  representative.  The  instinct  of  active,  brave,  able 
men  throughout  the  middle  class  everywhere  has 
pointed  out  Napoleon  as  the  incarnate  Democrat. 
He  had  their  virtues  and  their  vices ;  above  all,  he 
had  their  spirit  or  aim.  That  tendency  is  material, 
pointing  at  a  sensual  success,  and  employing  the 
richest  and  most  various  means  to  that  end ;  conver 
sant  with  mechanical  powers ;  highly  intellectual, 
widely  and  accurately  learned  and  skilful,  but  subor 
dinating  all  intellectual  and  spiritual  forces  into  means 
to  a  material  success.  To  be  the  rich  man  is  the  end. 
"God  has  granted,"  says  the  Koran,  "to  every 
people  a  prophet  in  its  own  tongue."  Paris,  and 
London,  and  New  York,  the  spirit  of  commerce,  of 
money,  and  material  power,  were  also  to  have  their 
prophet,  and  Bonaparte  was  qualified  and  sent. 

Every  one  of  the  million  readers  of  anecdotes,  or 
memoirs,  or  lives  of  Napoleon,  delights  in  the  page 
because  he  studies  in  it  his  own  history.  Napoleon 
is  thoroughly  modern,  and,  at  the  highest  point  of 


NAPOLEON.  183 

his  fortunes,  has  the  very  spirit  of  the  newspapers, 
He  is  no  saint, — to  use  his  own  word,  "no  capu 
chin,"  and  he  is  no  hero,  in  the  high  sense.  The 
man  in  the  street  finds  in  him  the  qualities  and  powers 
of  other  men  in  the  street.  He  finds  him,  like  him 
self,  by  birth  a  citizen,  who,  by  very  intelligible  merits, 
arrived  at  such  a  commanding  position  that  he  could 
indulge  all  those  tastes  which  the  common  man  pos 
sesses,  but  is  obliged  to  conceal  and  deny :  good 
society,  good  books,  fast  travelling,  dress,  dinners, 
servants  without  number,  personal  weight,  the  exe 
cution  of  his  ideas,  the  standing  in  the  attitude  of  a 
benefactor  to  all  persons  about  him,  the  refined  en 
joyments  of  pictures,  statues,  music,  palaces,  and 
conventional  honors,  precisely  what  is  agreeable  to 
the  heart  of  every  man  in  the  nineteenth  century,  this 
powerful  man  possessed. 

It  is  true  that  a  man  of  Napoleon's  truth  of  adap 
tation  to  the  mind  of  the  masses  around  him  becomes 
not  merely  representative,  but  actually  a  monopolizer 
and  usurper  of  other  minds.  Thus  Mirabeau  plagia 
rized  every  good  thought,  every  good  word  that  was 
spoken  in  France.  Dumont  relates  that  he  sat  in  the 
gallery  of  the  Convention  and  heard  Mirabeau  make 
a  speech.  It  struck  Dumont  that  he  could  fit  it  with 
a  peroration  which  he  wrote  in  pencil  immediately 
and  showed  it  to  Lord  Elgin,  who  sat  by  him.  Lord 
Elgin  approved  it,  and  Dumont,  in  the  evening, 
showed  it  to  Mirabeau.  Mirabeau  read  it,  pronounced 
it  admirable,  and  declared  he  would  incorporate  it 
into  his  harangue  to-morrow,  to  the  Assembly.  "  It 
is  impossible,11  said  Dumont,  "as,  unfortunately,  I 


184    t          REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin."  —  "If  you  have  shown 
it  to  Lord  Elgin  and  to  fifty  persons  beside,  I  shall 
still  speak  it  to-morrow."  And  he  did  speak  it  with 
much  effect  at  the  next  day's  session.  For  Mirabeau 
with  his  overpowering  personality  felt  that  these 
things  which  his  presence  inspired  were  as  much  his 
own  as  if  he  had  said  them,  and  that  his  adoption  of 
them  gave  them  their  weight.  Much  more  absolute 
and  centralizing  was  the  successor  to  Mirabeau's 
popularity,  and  to  much  more  than  his  predominance 
in  France.  Indeed,  a  man  of  Napoleon's  stamp  al 
most  ceases  to  have  a  private  speech  and  opinion. 
He  is  so  largely  receptive  and  is  so  placed  that  he 
comes  to  be  a  bureau  for  all  the  intelligence,  wit,  and 
power  of  the  age  and  country,  He  gains  the  battle  ; 
he  makes  the  code ;  he  makes  the  system  of  weights 
and  measures  ;  he  levels  the  Alps  ;  he  builds  the  road. 
All  distinguished  engineers,  savans,  statists,  report 
to  him  ;  so,  likewise,  do  all  good  heads  in  every  kind  ; 
he  adopts  the  best  measures,  sets  his  stamp  on  them ; 
and  not  these  alone,  but  on  every  happy  and  memo 
rable  expression.  Every  sentence  spoken  by  Napo 
leon  and  every  line  of  his  writing  deserves  reading, 
as  it  is  the  sense  of  France. 

Bonaparte  was  the  idol  of  common  men,  because 
he  had  in  transcendent  degree  the  qualities  and  powers 
of  common  men.  There  is  a  certain  satisfaction  in 
coming  down  to  the  lowest  ground  of  politics,  for 
we  get  rid  of  cant  and  hypocrisy.  Bonaparte  wrought, 
in  common  with  that  great  class  he  represented,  for 
power  and  wealth,  —  but  Bonaparte,  specially,  with 
out  any  scruple  as  to  the  means.  All  the  senti- 


NAPOLEON.  185 

ments  which  embarrass  men's  pursuit  of  these  objects, 
he  set  aside.  The  sentiments  were  for  women  and 
children.  Fontanes,  in  1804,  expressed  Napoleon's 
own  sense,  when,  in  behalf  of  the  Senate,  he  ad 
dressed  him,  —  "Sire,  the  desire  of  perfection  is 
the  worst  disease  that  ever  afflicted  the  human 
mind."  The  advocates  of  liberty  and  of  progress 
are  « '  ideologists  ;  "  —  a  word  of  contempt  often  in 
his  mouth:  "  Necker  is  an  ideologist;"  "Lafay 
ette  is  an  ideologist." 

An  Italian  proverb,  too  well  known,  declares  that, 
"  if  you  would  succeed,  you  must  not  be  too  good." 
It  is  an  advantage,  within  certain  limits,  to  have 
renounced  the  dominion  of  the  sentiments  of  piety, 
gratitude,  and  generosity;  since,  what  was  an  im 
passable  bar  to  us,  and  still  is  to  others,  becomes  a 
convenient  weapon  for  our  purposes ;  just  as  the 
river  which  was  a  formidable  barrier,  winter  trans 
forms  into  the  smoothest  of  roads. 

Napoleon  renounced,  once  for  all,  sentiments  and 
affections,  and  would  help  himself  with  his  hands 
and  his  head.  With  him  is  no  miracle,  and  no 
magic.  He  is  a  worker  in  brass,  in  iron,  in  wood, 
in  earth,  in  roads,  in  buildings,  in  money,  and  in 
troops,  and  a  very  consistent  and  wise  master-work 
man.  He  is  never  weak  and  literary,  but  acts  with 
the  solidity  and  the  precision  of  natural  agents. 
He  has  not  lost  his  native  sense  and  sympathy  with 
things.  Men  give  way  before  such  a  man,  as  before 
natural  events.  To  be  sure,  there  are  men  enough 
who  are  immersed  in  things,  as  farmers,  smiths, 
sailors,  and  mechanics  generally ;  and  we  know  how 


1 86  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

real  and  solid  such  men  appear  in  the  presence  of 
scholars  and  grammarians  ;  but  these  men  ordinarily 
lack  the  power  of  arrangement,  and  are  like  hands 
without  a  head.  But  Bonaparte  superadded  to  this 
mineral  and  animal  force,  insight  and  generalization, 
so  that  men  saw  in  him  combined  the  natural  and 
the  intellectual  power,  as  if  the  sea  and  land  had 
taken  flesh  and  begun  to  cipher.  Therefore  the 
land  and  sea  seem  to  presuppose  him.  He  came 
unto  his  own,  and  they  received  him.  This  cipher 
ing  operative  knows  what  he  is  working  with  and 
what  is  the  product.  He  knew  the  properties  of 
gold  and  iron,  of  wheels  and  ships,  of  troops  and 
diplomatists,  and  required  that  each  should  do  after 
its  kind. 

The  art  of  war  was  the  game  in  which  he  exerted 
his  arithmetic.  It  consisted,  according  to  him,  in 
having  always  more  forces  than  the  enemy,  on  the 
point  where  the  enemy  is  attacked,  or  where  he 
attacks ;  and  his  whole  talent  is  strained  by  endless 
manoeuvre  and  evolution,  to  march  always  on  the 
enemy  at  an  angle,  and  destroy  his  forces  in  detail. 
It  is  obvious  that  a  very  small  force,  skilfully  and 
rapidly  manoeuvring,  so  as  always  to  bring  two  men 
against  one  at  the  point  of  engagement,  will  be  an 
overmatch  for  a  much  larger  body  of  men. 

The  times,  his  constitution,  and  his  early  circum 
stances,  combined  to  develop  this  pattern  democrat. 
He  had  the  virtues  of  his  class,  and  the  conditions 
for  their  activity.  That  common  sense,  which  no 
sooner  respects  any  end,  than  it  finds  the  means  to 
effect  it ;  the  delight  in  the  use  of  means ;  in  the 


NAPOLEON.  187 

choice,  simplification,  and  combining  of  means ;  the 
directness  and  thoroughness  of  his  work  ;  the  prudence 
with  which  all  was  seen,  and  the  energy  with  which 
all  was  done,  make  him  the  natural  organ  and  head 
of  what  I  may  almost  call,  from  its  extent,  the 
modern  party. 

Nature  must  have  far  the  greatest  share  in  every 
success,  and  so  in  his.  Such  a  man  was  wanted, 
and  such  a  man  was  born ;  a  man  of  stone  and 
iron,  capable  of  sitting  on  horseback  sixteen  or  sev 
enteen  hours,  of  going  many  days  together  without 
rest  or  food,  except  by  snatches,  and  with  the  speed 
and  spring  of  a  tiger  in  action ;  a  man  not  embarrassed 
by  any  scruples;  compact,  instant,  selfish,  prudent, 
and  of  a  perception  which  did  not  suffer  itself  to  be 
balked  or  misled  by  any  pretences  of  others,  or  any 
superstition,  or  any  heat  or  haste  of  his  own.  "  My 
hand  of  iron,11  he  said,  "  was  not  at  the  extremity  of  my 
arm ;  it  was  immediately  connected  with  my  head." 
He  respected  the  power  of  nature  and  fortune,  and  as 
cribed  to  it  his  superiority,  instead  of  valuing  himself, 
like  inferior  men,  on  his  opinionativeness,  and  wag 
ing  war  with  nature.  His  favorite  rhetoric  lay  in 
allusion  to  his  star ;  and  he  pleased  himself,  as  well 
as  the  people,  when  he  styled  himself  the  "Child 
of  Destiny.1'  "They  charge  me,'1  he  said,  "with 
the  commission  of  great  crimes :  men  of  my  stamp 
do  not  commit  crimes.  Nothing  has  been  more 
simple  than  my  elevation ;  'tis  in  vain  to  ascribe  it 
to  intrigue  or  crime :  it  was  owing  to  the  peculiarity 
of  the  times,  and  to  my  reputation  of  having  fought 
well  against  the  enemies  of  my  country.  I  have 


1 88  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

always  marched  with  the  opinion  of  great  masses, 
and  with  events.  Of  what  use,  then,  would  crimes 
be  to  me?"  Again  he  said,  speaking  of  his  son, 
"My  son  cannot  replace  me;  I  could  not  replace 
myself.  I  am  the  creature  of  circumstances." 

He  had  a  directness  of  action  never  before  com 
bined  with  so  much  comprehension.  He  is  a  realist, 
terrific  to  all  talkers  and  confused  truth-obscuring 
persons.  He  sees  where  the  matter  hinges,  throws 
himself  on  the  precise  point  of  resistance,  and  slights 
all  other  considerations.  He  is  strong  in  the  right 
manner;  namely,  by  insight.  He  never  blundered 
into  victory,  but  won  his  battles  in  his  head,  before 
he  won  them  on  the  field.  His  principal  means  are 
in  himself.  He  asks  counsel  of  no  other.  In  1796 
he  writes  to  the  Directory :  —  "I  have  conducted  the 
campaign  without  consulting  any  one.  I  should  have 
done  no  good,  if  I  had  been  under  the  necessity  of 
conforming  to  the  notions  of  another  person.  I  have 
gained  some  advantages  over  superior  forces,  and 
when  totally  destitute  of  everything,  because,  in  the 
persuasion  that  your  confidence  was  reposed  in  me, 
my  actions  were  as  prompt  as  my  thoughts." 

History  is  full,  down  to  this  day,  of  the  imbecility 
of  kings  and  governors.  They  are  a  class  of  persons 
much  to  be  pitied,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
should  do.  The  weavers  strike  for  bread ;  and  the 
king  and  his  ministers,  not  knowing  what  to  do, 
meet  them  with  bayonets.  But  Napoleon  under 
stood  his  business.  Here  was  a  man  who,  in  each 
moment  and  emergency,  knew  what  to  do  next.  It 
is  an  immense  comfort  and  refreshment  to  the  spirits, 


NAPOLEON.  189 

not  only  of  kings  but  of  citizens.  Few  men  have  any 
next ;  they  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  without  plan, 
and  are  ever  at  the  end  of  their  line,  and,  after  each 
action,  wait  for  an  impulse  from  abroad.  Napoleon 
had  been  the  first  man  of  the  world,  if  his  ends  had 
been  purely  public.  As  he  is,  he  inspires  confidence 
and  vigor  by  the  extraordinary  unity  of  his  action. 
He  is  firm,  sure,  self-denying,  self-postponing,  sacri 
ficing  everything  to  his  aim,  —  money,  troops,  gen 
erals,  and  his  own  safety  also,  to  his  aim  ;  not  misled, 
like  common  adventurers,  by  the  splendor  of  his  own 
means.  "  Incidents  ought  not  to  govern  policy,"  he 
said,  "  but  policy,  incidents." —  "  To  be  hurried  away 
by  every  event  is  to  have  no  political  system  at  all.  " 
His  victories  were  only  so  many  doors,  and  he  never 
for  a  moment  lost  sight  of  his  way  onward  in  the 
dazzle  and  uproar  of  the  present  circumstance.  He 
knew  what  to  do,  and  he  flew  to  his  mark.  He 
would  shorten  a  straight  line  to  come  at  his  object. 
Horrible  anecdotes  may,  no  doubt,  be  collected  from 
his  history,  of  the  price  at  which  he  bought  his  suc 
cesses  ;  but  he  must  not  therefore  be  set  down  as 
cruel,  but  only  as  one  who  knew  no  impediment  to 
his  will ;  not  bloodthirsty,  not  cruel,  —  but  woe  to 
what  thing  or  person  stood  in  his  way !  Not  blood 
thirsty,  but  not  sparing  of  blood,  —  and  pitiless.  He 
saw  only  the  object:  the  obstacle  must  give  way. 
"  Sire,  General  Clarke  can  not  combine  with  Gen 
eral  Junot,  for  the  dreadful  fire  of  the  Austrian 
battery."  —  "  Let  him  carry  the  battery."  —  «*  Sire, 
every  regiment  that  approaches  the  heavy  artillery  is 
sacrificed:  Sire,  what  orders?"  —  ''Forward,  for- 


190  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

ward !  "  Seruzier,  a  colonel  of  artillery,  gives,  in 
his  Military  Memoirs,  the  following  sketch  of  a  scene 
after  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  :  —  "At  the  moment  in 
which  the  Russian  army  was  making  its  retreat,  pain 
fully,  but  in  good  order,  on  the  ice  of  the  lake,  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  came  riding  at  full  speed  toward 
the  artillery.  'You  are  losing  time,1  he  cried; 
•  fire  upon  these  masses :  they  must  be  engulfed ;  fire 
upon  the  ice  ! '  The  order  remained  unexecuted  for 
ten  minutes.  In  vain  several  officers  and  myself 
were  placed  on  the  slope  of  a  hill  to  produce  the 
effect :  their  balls  and  mine  rolled  upon  the  ice,  with 
out  breaking  it  up.  Seeing  that,  I  tried  a  simple 
method  of  elevating  light  howitzers.  The  almost 
perpendicular  fall  of  the  heavy  projectiles  produced 
the  desired  effect.  My  method  was  immediately 
followed  by  the  adjoining  batteries,  and  in  less  than 
no  time  we  buried"  some  J  "  thousands  of  Russians 
and  Austrians  under  the  waters 'of  the  lake." 

In  the  plenitude  of  his  resources  every  obstacle 
seemed  to  vanish.  "  There  shall  be  no  Alps,"  he 
said;  and  he  built  his  perfect  roads,  climbing  by 
graded  galleries  their  steepest  precipices  until  Italy 
was  as  open  to  Paris  as  any  town  in  France.  He 
laid  his  bones  to  and  wrought  for  his  crown.  Having 
decided  what  was  to  be  done,  he  did  that  with  might 
and  main.  He  put  out  all  his  strength.  He  risked 
everything  and  spared  nothing,  neither  ammunition, 
nor  money,  nor  troops,  nor  generals,  nor  himself. 

We  like  to  see  everything  do  its  office  after  its 

1  As  I  quote  at  second  hand,  and  cannot  procure  Seruzier,  I 
dare  not  adopt  the  high  figure  I  find. 


NAPOLEON.  191 

kind,  whether  it  be  a  milch-cow  or  a  rattlesnake; 
and  if  fighting  be  the  best  mode  of  adjusting  na 
tional  differences  (as  large  majorities  of  men  seem 
to  agree),  certainly  Bonaparte  was  right  in  making 
it  thorough.  "  The  grand  principle  of  war,"  he  said, 
« '  was  that  an  army  ought  always  to  be  ready,  by 
day  and  by  night,  and  at  all  hours,  to  make  all  the 
resistance  it  is  capable  of  making."  He  never  econo 
mized  his  ammunition,  but  on  a  hostile  position 
rained  a  torrent  of  iron  —  shells,  balls,  grape-shot  — 
to  annihilate  all  defence.  On  any  point  of  resist 
ance  he  concentrated  squadron  on  squadron  in  over 
whelming  numbers  until  it  was  swept  out  of  existence. 
To  a  regiment  of  horse-chasseurs  at  Lobenstein,  two 
days  before  the  battle  of  Jena,  Napoleon  said  :  —  "My 
lads,  you  must  not  fear  death ;  when  soldiers  brave 
death  they  drive  him  into  the  enemy's  ranks."  In 
the  fury  of  assault  he  no  more  spared  himself.  He 
went  to  the  edge  of  his  possibility.  It  is  plain  that 
in  Italy  he  did  what  he  could  and  all  that  he  could. 
He  came  several  times  within  an  inch  of  ruin ;  and 
his  own  person  was  all  but  lost.  He  was  flung  into 
the  marsh  at  Arcola.  The  Austrians  were  between 
him  and  his  troops  in  the  melee  and  he  was  brought 
off  with  desperate  efforts.  At  Lonato  and  at  other 
places  he  was  on  the  point  of  being  taken  prisoner. 
He  fought  sixty  battles.  He  had  never  enough. 
Each  victory  was  a  new  weapon.  ««  My  power  would 
fall  were  I  not  to  support  it  by  new  achievements. 
Conquest  has  made  me  what  I  am,  and  conquest  must 
maintain  me."  He  felt,  with  every  wise  man,  that 
as  much  life  is  needed  for  conservation  as  for  crea- 


192  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tion.  We  are  always  in  peril,  always  in  a  bad  plight, 
just  on  the  edge  of  destruction,  and  only  to  be  saved 
by  invention  and  courage. 

This  vigor  was  guarded  and  tempered  by  the  cold 
est  prudence  and  punctuality.  A  thunderbolt  in  the 
attack,  he  was  found  invulnerable  in  his  intrench- 
ments.  His  very  attack  was  never  the  inspiration 
of  courage  but  the  result  of  calculation.  His  idea  of 
the  best  defence  consists  in  being  still  the  attacking 
party.  "My  ambition,"  he  says,  "was  great,  but 
was  of  a  cold  nature."  In  one  of  his  conversations 
with  Las  Cases  he  remarked  :  —  "  As  to  moral  courage 
I  have  rarely  met  with  the  two-o'clock-in-the-morning 
kind:  I  mean  unprepared  courage,  that  which  is 
necessary  on  an  unexpected  occasion  ;  and  which,  in 
spite  of  the  most  unforeseen  events,  leaves  full  free 
dom  of  judgment  and  decision ;  "  and  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  declare  that  he  was  himself  eminently  en 
dowed  with  this  "  two-o^loclc-in-the-morning  cour 
age,"  and  that  he  had  met  with  few  persons  equal  to 
himself  in  this  respect. 

Everything  depended  on  the  nicety  of  his  com 
binations,  and  the  stars  were  not  more  punctual 
than  his  arithmetic.  His  personal  attention  de 
scended  to  the  smallest  particulars.  "At  Monte- 
bello  I  ordered  Kellermann  to  attack  with  eight 
hundred  horse,  and  with  these  he  separated  the  six 
thousand  Hungarian  grenadiers,  before  the  very 
eyes  of  the  Austrian  cavalry.  This  cavalry  was  half 
a  league  off,  and  required  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to 
arrive  on  the  field  of  action ;  and  I  have  observed 
that  it  is  always  these  quarters  of  an  hour  that  decide 


NAPOLEON.  193 

the  fate  of  a  battle."—  <'  Before  he  fought  a  battle, 
Bonaparte  thought  little  about  what  he  should  do  in 
case  of  success,  but  a  great  deal  about  what  he 
should  do  in  case  of  a  reverse  of  fortune."  The 
same  prudence  and  good  sense  mark  all  his  behavior. 
His  instructions  to  his  secretary  at  the  Tuilleries  are 
worth  remembering:  —  "During  the  night,  enter  my 
chamber  as  seldom  as  possible.  Do  not  awake  me 
when  you  have  any  good  news  to  communicate  ;  with 
that  there  is  no  hurry.  But  when  you  bring  bad  news, 
rouse  me  instantly,  for  then  there  is  not  a  moment 
to  be  lost."  It  was  a  whimsical  economy  of  the 
same  kind  which  dictated  his  practice,  when  general 
in  Italy,  in  regard  to  his  burdensome  correspondence. 
He  directed  Bourrienne  to  leave  all  letters  unopened 
for  three  weeks,  and  then  observed  with  satisfaction 
how  large  a  part  of  the  correspondence  had  thus  dis 
posed  of  itself,  and  no  longer  required  an  answer. 
His  achievement  of  business  was  immense,  and  en 
larges  the  known  powers  of  man.  There  have  been 
many  working  kings,  from  Ulysses  to  William  of 
Orange,  but  none  who  accomplished  a  tithe  of  this 
man's  performance. 

To  these  gifts  of  nature,  Napoleon  added  the  ad 
vantage  of  having  been  born  to  a  private  and  humble 
fortune.  In  his  later  days  he  had  the  weakness  of 
wishing  to  add  to  his  crowns  and  badges  the  pre 
scription  of  aristocracy ;  but  he  knew  his  debt  to  his 
austere  education,  and  made  no  secret  of  his  con 
tempt  for  the  born  kings,  and  for  '«  the  hereditary 
asses,"  as  he  coarsely  styled  the  Bourbons.  He 
said  that,  "  in  their  exile,  they  had  learned  nothing, 


194  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  forgot  nothing."  Bonaparte  had  passed  through 
all  the  degrees  of  military  service,  but  also  was  citi 
zen  before  he  was  emperor,  and  so  has  the  key  to 
citizenship.  His  remarks  and  estimates  discover  the 
information  and  justness  of  measurement  of  the 
middle  class.  Those  who  had  to  deal  with  him 
found  that  he  was  not  to  be  imposed  upon,  but  could 
cipher  as  well  as  another  man.  This  appears  in  all 
parts  of  his  Memoirs,  dictated  at  St.  Helena.  When 
the  expenses  of  the  empress,  of  his  household,  of 
his  palaces,  had  accumulated  great  debts,  Napoleon 
examined  the  bills  of  the  creditors  himself,  detected 
overcharges  and  errors,  and  reduced  the  claims  by 
considerable  sums. 

His  grand  weapon,  namely,  the  millions  whom  he 
directed,  he  owed  to  the  representative  character 
which  clothed  him.  He  interests  us  as  he  stands  for 
France  and  for  Europe ;  and  he  exists  as  captain 
and  king,  only  as  far  as  thfe  Revolution,  or  the 
interest  of  the  industrious  masses,  found  an  organ 
and  a  leader  in  him.  In  the  social  interests  he 
knew  the  meaning  and  value  of  labor,  and  threw 
himself  naturally  on  that  side.  I  like  an  incident 
mentioned  by  one  of  his  biographers  at  St.  Helena  :  — 
"When  walking  with  Mrs.  Balcombe,  some  servants, 
carrying  heavy  boxes,  passed  by  on  the  road,  and 
Mrs.  Balcombe  desired  them,  in  rather  an  angry  tone, 
to  keep  back.  Napoleon  interfered,  saying,  •  Respect 
the  burden,  Madam.' "  In  the  time  of  the  empire 
he  directed  attention  to  the  improvement  and  em 
bellishment  of  the  markets  of  the  capital.  "  The 
market-place,"  he  said,  «« is  the  Louvre  of  the  com- 


NAPOLEON.  195 

mon  people."  The  principal  works  that  have  survived 
him  are  his  magnificent  roads.  He  filled  the  troops 
with  his  spirit,  and  a  sort  of  freedom  and  companion 
ship  grew  up  between  him  and  them,  which  the 
forms  of  his  court  never  permitted  between  the  offi 
cers  and  himself.  They  performed  under  his  eye 
that  which  no  others  could  do.  The  best  document 
of  his  relation  to  his  troops  is  the  order  of  the  day 
on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  in  which 
Napoleon  promises  the  troops  that  he  will  keep  his 
person  out  of  reach  of  fire.  This  declaration,  which 
is  the  reverse  of  that  ordinarily  made  by  generals 
and  sovereigns  on  the  eve  of  a  battle,  sufficiently 
explains  the  devotion  of  the  army  to  their  leader. 

But  though  there  is  in  particulars  this  identity 
between  Napoleon  and  the  mass  of  the  people,  his 
real  strength  lay  in  their  conviction  that  he  was  their 
representative  in  his  genius  and  aims,  not  only  when 
he  courted,  but  when  he  controlled  and  even  when 
he  decimated  them  by  his  conscriptions.  He  knew 
as  well  as  any  Jacobin  in  France  how  to  philosophize 
on  liberty  and  equality;  and  when  allusion  was 
made  to  the  precious  blood  of  centuries,  which  was 
spilled  by  the  killing  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  he  sug 
gested,  "  Neither  is  my  blood  ditch-water."  The 
people  felt  that  no  longer  the  throne  was  occupied 
and  the  land  sucked  of  its  nourishment  by  a  small 
class  of  legitimates,  secluded  from  all  community 
with  the  children  of  the  soil,  and  holding  the  ideas 
and  superstitions  of  a  long-forgotten  state  of  society. 
Instead  of  that  vampire,  a  man  of  themselves  held  in 
the  Tuilleries  knowledge  and  ideas  like  their  own, 


19$  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

opening,  of  course,  to  them  and  their  children,  all 
places  of  power  and  trust.  The  day  of  sleepy,  selfish 
policy,  ever  narrowing  the  means  and  opportunities 
of  young  men,  was  ended,  and  a  day  of  expansion 
and  demand  was  come.  A  market  for  all  the  powers 
and  productions  of  man  was  opened  ;  brilliant  prizes 
glittered  in  the  eyes  of  youth  and  talent.  The  old, 
iron-bound,  feudal  France  was  changed  into  a  young 
Ohio  or  New  York;  and  those  who  smarted  under 
the  immediate  rigors  of  the  new  monarch  pardoned 
them,  as  the  necessary  severities  of  the  military 
system  which  had  driven  out  the  oppressor.  And 
even  when  the  majority  of  the  people  had  begun  to 
ask  whether  they  had  really  gained  anything  under 
the  exhausting  levies  of  men  and  money  of  the  new 
master,  —  the  whole  talent  of  the  country,  in  every 
rank  and  kindred,  took  his  part,  and  defended  him  as 
its  natural  patron.  In  1814,  when  advised  to  rely 
on  the  higher  classes,  Napoleon  said  to  those  around 
him  :  —  "  Gentlemen,  in  the  situation  in  which  I  stand, 
my  only  nobility  is  the  rabble  of  the  Faubourgs.1' 

Napoleon  met  this  natural  expactation.  The 
necessity  of  his  position  required  a  hospitality  to 
every  sort  of  talent,  and  its  appointment  to  trusts ; 
and  his  feeling  went  along  with  this  policy.  Like 
every  superior  person,  he  undoubtedly  felt  a  desire 
for  men  and  compeers,  and  a  wish  to  measure  his 
power  with  other  masters,  arid  an  impatience  of  fools 
and  underlings.  In  Italy  he  sought  for  men,  and 
found  none.  "  Good  God  !  "  he  said,  ««  how  rare 
men  are  !  There  are  eighteen  millions  in  Italy,  and 
I  have  with  difficulty  found  two,  —  Dandolo  and 


NAPOLEON.  197 

Melzi."  In  later  years,  with  larger  experience,  his 
respect  for  mankind  was  not  increased.  In  a 
moment  of  bitterness  he  said  to  one  of  his  oldest 
friends  :  —  "  Men  deserve  the  contempt  with  which 
they  inspire  me.  I  have  only  to  put  some  gold  lace 
on  the  coat  of  my  virtuous  republicans,  and  they  imme 
diately  become  just  what  I  wish  them.11  This  im 
patience  at  levity  was,  however,  an  oblique  tribute  of 
respect  to  those  able  psrsons  who  commanded  his 
regard,  not  only  when  he  found  them  friends  and 
coadjutors,  but  also  when  they  resisted  his  will. 
He  could  not  confound  Fox  and  Pitt,  Carnot,  Lafay 
ette,  and  Bernadotte  with  the  danglers  of  his  court ; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  detraction  which  his  systematic 
egotism  dictated  toward  the  great  captains  who  con 
quered  with  and  for  him,  ample  acknowledgments 
are  made  by  him  to  Lannes,  Duroc,  Kleber,  Dessaix, 
Massena,  Murat,  Ney,  and  Augereau.  If  he  felt 
himself  their  patron,  and  the  founder  of  their  for 
tunes,  as  when  he  said,  "  I  made  my  generals  out  of 
mud,"  he  could  not  hide  his  satisfaction  in  receiving 
from  them  a  seconding  and  support  commensurate 
with  the  grandeur  of  his  enterprise.  In  the  Russian 
campaign  he  was  so  much  impressed  by  the  courage 
and  resources  of  Marshal  Ney  that  he  said  :  —  "I  have 
two  hundred  millions  in  my  coffers,  and  I  would  give 
them  all  for  Ney."  The  characters  which  he  has 
drawn  of  several  of  his  marshals  are  discriminating, 
and,  though  they  did  not  content  the  insatiable 
vanity  of  French  officers,  are,  no  doubt,  substan 
tially  just.  And,  in  fact,  every  species  of  merit  was 
sought  and  advanced  under  his  government.  "  I 


198  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

know,1'  he  said,  "  the  depth  and  draught  of  water  of 
every  one  of  my  generals."  Natural  power  was  sure 
to  be  well  received  at  his  court.  Seventeen  men,  in 
his  time,  were  raised  from  common  soldiers  to  the 
rank  of  king,  marshal,  duke,  or  general ;  and  the 
crosses  of  his  Legion  of  Honor  were  given  to  per 
sonal  valor,  and  not  to  family  connection.  "  When 
soldiers  have  been  baptized  in  the  fire  of  a  battle 
field,  they  have  all  one  rank  in  my  eyes.11 

When  a  natural  king  becomes  a  titular  king, 
everybody  is  pleased  and  satisfied.  The  Revolution 
entitled  the  strong  populace  of  the  Faubourg  St.  An- 
toine,  and  every  horse-boy  and  powder-monkey  in 
the  army,  to  look  on  Napoleon  as  flesh  of  his  flesh, 
and  the  creature  of  his  party ;  but  there  is  something 
in  the  success  of  grand  talent  which  enlists  a  uni 
versal  sympathy.  For,  in  the  prevalence  of  sense 
and  spirit  over  stupidity  and  malversation,  all  reason 
able  men  have  an  interest ;  and,  as  intellectual  beings, 
we  feel  the  air  purified  by  the  electric  shock  when 
material  force  is  overthrown  by  intellectual  energies. 
As  soon  as  we  are  removed  out  of  the  reach  of  local 
and  accidental  partialities,  man  feels  that  Napoleon 
fights  for  him  ;  these  are  honest  victories  ;  this  strong 
steam-engine  does  our  work.  Whatever  appeals  to 
the  imagination,  by  transcending  the  ordinary  limits 
of  human  ability,  wonderfully  encourages  and  liber 
ates  us.  This  capacious  head,  revolving  and  disposing 
sovereignly  trains  of  affairs,  and  animating  such 
multitudes  of  agents  ;  this  eye,  which  looked  through 
Europe  ;  this  prompt  invention  ;  this  inexhaustible  re 
source  :  —  what  events!  what  romantic  pictures!  what 


NAPOLEON.  199 

strange  situations!  —  when  spying  the  Alps,  by  a 
sunset  in  the  Sicilian  sea ;  drawing  up  his  army  for 
battle,  in  sight  of  the  Pyramids,  and  saying  to  his 
troops:  —  "From  the  tops  of  those  pyramids,  forty 
centuries  look  down  on  you ;  "  fording  the  Red  Sea ; 
wading  in  the  gulf  of  the  Isthmus  of  Suez.  On  the 
shore  of  Ptolemais,  gigantic  projects  agitated  him. 
"  Had  Acre  fallen,  I  should  have  changed  the  face 
of  the  world."  His  army  on  the  night  of  the  battle 
of  Austerlitz,  which  was  the  anniversary  of  his  in 
auguration  as  Emperor,  presented  him  with  a  bouquet 
of  forty  standards  taken  in  the  fight.  Perhaps  it  is 
a  little  puerile,  the  pleasure  he  took  in  making  these 
contrasts  glaring ;  as  when  he  pleased  himself  with 
making  kings  wait  in  his  antechambers,  at  Tilsit,  at 
Paris,  and  at  Erfurt. 

We  cannot,  in  the  universal  imbecility,  indecision, 
and  indolence  of  men,  sufficiently  congratulate  our 
selves  on  this  strong  and  ready  actor,  who  took 
occasion  by  the  beard,  and  showed  us  how  much 
may  be  accomplished  by  the  mere  force  of  such 
virtues  as  all  men  possess  in  less  degrees ;  namely, 
by  punctuality,  by  personal  attention,  by  courage, 
and  thoroughness.  "  The  Austrians,"  he  said,  "  do 
not  know  the  value  of  time."  I  should  cite  him,  in 
his  earlier  years,  as  a  model  of  prudence.  His  power 
does  not  consist  in  any  wild  or  extravagant  force ;  in 
any  enthusiasm,  like  Mahomefs ;  or  singular  power 
of  persuasion ;  but  in  the  exercise  of  common  sense 
on  each  emergency,  instead  of  abiding  by  rules  and 
customs.  The  lesson  he  teaches  is  that  which  vigor 
always  teaches,  —  that  there  is  always  room  for  it. 


200  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

To  what  heaps  of  cowardly  doubts  is  not  that  man's 
life  an  answer !  When  he  appeared,  it  was  the 
belief  of  all  military  men  that  there  could  be  nothing 
new  in  war ;  as  it  is  the  belief  of  men  to-day  that 
nothing  new  can  be  undertaken  in  politics,  or  in 
church,  or  in  letters,  or  in  trade,  or  in  farming,  or  in 
our  social  manners  and  customs ;  and  as  it  is,  at  all 
times,  the  belief  of  society  that  the  world  is  used  up. 
But  Bonaparte  knew  better  than  society ;  and,  more 
over,  knew  that  he  knew  better.  I  think  all  men 
know  better  than  they  do  ;  know  that  the  institutions 
we  so  volubly  commend  are  go-carts  and  baubles ; 
but  they  dare  not  trust  their  presentiments.  Bona 
parte  relied  on  his  own  sense,  and  did  not  care  a 
bean  for  other  people's.  The  world  treated  his 
novelties  just  as  it  treats  everybody's  novelties,  — 
made  infinite  objection;  mustered  all  the  impedi 
ments  ;  but  he  snapped  his  finger  at  their  objections, 
"What  creates  great  difficulty^'  he  remarks,  "in 
the  profession  of  the  land-commander,  is  the  neces 
sity  of  feeding  so  many  men  and  animals.  If  he 
allows  himself  to  be  guided  by  the  commissaries  he 
will  never  stir,  and  all  his  expeditions  will  fail."  An 
example  of  his  common  sense  is  what  he  says  of  the 
passage  of  the  Alps  in  winter,  which  all  writers,  one 
repeating  after  the  other,  had  described  as  imprac 
ticable.  "  The  winter,"  says  Napoleon,  "is  not  the 
most  unfavorable  season  for  the  passage  of  lofty 
mountains.  The  snow  is  then  firm,  the  weather 
settled,  and  there  is  nothing  to  fear  from  avalanches, 
the  real  and  only  danger  to  be  apprehended  in  the 
Alps.  On  those  high  mountains,  there  are  often 


NAPOLEON.  201 

very  fine  days  in  December,  of  a  dry  cold,  with  ex 
treme  calmness  in  the  air."  Read  his  account,  too, 
of  the  way  in  which  battles  are  gained.  "In  all 
battles,  a  moment  occurs  when  the  bravest  troops, 
after  having  made  the  greatest  efforts,  feel  inclined 
to  run.  That  terror  proceeds  from  a  want  of  confi 
dence  in  their  own  courage ;  and  it  only  requires  a 
slight  opportunity,  a  pretence,  to  restore  confidence 
to  them.  The  art  is  to  give  rise  to  the  opportunity, 
and  to  invent  the  pretence.  At  Arcola  I  won  the 
battle  with  twenty-five  horsemen.  I  seized  that 
moment  of  lassitude,  gave  every  man  a  trumpet,  and 
gained  the  day  with  this  handful.  You  see  that  two 
armies  are  two  bodies  which  meet,  and  endeavor  to 
frighten  each  other :  a  moment  of  panic  occurs,  and 
that  moment  must  be  turned  to  advantage.  When  a 
man  has  been  present  in  many  actions,  he  distin 
guishes  that  moment  without  difficulty :  it  is  as  easy 
as  casting  up  an  addition." 

This  deputy  of  the  nineteenth  century  added  to 
his  gifts  a  capacity  for  speculation  on  general  topics. 
He  delighted  in  running  through  the  range  of  prac 
tical,  of  literary,  and  of  abstract  questions.  His 
opinion  is  always  original,  and  to  the  purpose.  On 
the  voyage  to  Egypt,  he  liked,  after  dinner,  to  fix  on 
three  or  four  persons  to  support  a  proposition,  and 
as  many  to  oppose  it.  He  gave  a  subject,  and  the 
discussions  turned  on  questions  of  religion,  the 
different  kinds  of  government,  and  the  art  of  war. 
One  day  he  asked  whether  the  planets  were  in 
habited.  On  another,  what  was  the  age  of  the 
world.  Then  he  proposed  to  consider  the  proba- 


203  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

bility  of  the  destruction  of  the  globe,  either  by 
water  or  by  fire  ;  at  another  time,  the  truth  or  fallacy 
of  presentiments,  and  the  interpretation  of  dreams. 
He  was  very  fond  of  talking  of  religion.  In  1806 
he  conversed  with  Fournier,  bishop  of  Montpellier, 
on  matters  of  theology.  There  were  two  points  on 
which  they  could  not  agree;  viz.,  that  of  hell,  and 
that  of  salvation  out  of  the  pale  of  the  church. 
The  Emperor  told  Josephine  that  he  disputed  like  a 
devil  on  these  two  points,  on  which  the  bishop  was 
inexorable.  To  the  philosophers  he  readily  yielded 
all  that  was  proved  against  religion  as  the  work  of 
men  and  time ;  but  he  would  not  hear  of  mate 
rialism.  One  fine  night,  on  deck,  amid  a  clatter  of 
materialism,  Bonaparte  pointed  to  the  stars,  and 
said :  —  "  You  may  talk  as  long  as  you  please,  gen 
tlemen,  but  who  made  all  that?"  He  delighted  in 
the  conversation  of  men  of  science,  particularly  of 
Monge  and  Berthollet ;  but  the  men  of  letters  he 
slighted;  "they  were  manufacturers  of  phrases." 
Of  medicine,  too,  he  was  fond  of  talking,  and  with 
those  of  its  practitioners  whom  he  most  esteemed, 
—  with  Corvisart  at  Paris,  and  with  Antonomarchi 
at  St.  Helena.  "Believe  me,"  he  said  to  the  last, 
"we  had  better  leave  off  all  these  remedies:  life  is 
a  fortress  which  neither  you  nor  I  know  anything 
about.  Why  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  its 
defence?  Its  own  means  are  superior  to  all  the 
apparatus  of  your  laboratories.  Corvisart  candidly 
agreed  with  me,  that  all  your  filthy  mixtures  are 
good  for  nothing.  Medicine  is  a  collection  of  un 
certain  prescriptions,  the  results  of  which,  taken 


NAPOLEON.  203 

collectively,  are  more  fatal  than  useful  to  mankind. 
Water,  air,  and  cleanliness  are  the  chief  articles  in 
my  pharmacopoeia." 

His  Memoirs,  dictated  to  Count  Montholon  and 
General  Gourgaud,  at  St.  Helena,  have  great  value, 
after  all  the  deduction  that,  it  seems,  is  to  be  made 
from  them,  on  account  of  his  known  disingenu- 
ousness.  He  has  the  good-nature  of  strength  and 
conscious  superiority.  I  admire  his  simple,  clear  nar 
rative  of  his  battles  ;  —  good  as  Caesar's  ;  his  good- 
natured  and  sufficiently  respectful  account  of  Marshal 
Wurmser  and  his  other  antagonists  ;  and  his  own 
equality  as  a  writer  to  his  varying  subject.  The 
most  agreeable  portion  is  the  Campaign  in  Egypt. 

He  had  hours  of  thought  and  wisdom.  In  inter 
vals  of  leisure,  either  in  the  camp  or  the  palace, 
Napoleon  appears  as  a  man  of  genius,  directing  on 
abstract  questions  the  native  appetite  for  truth  and 
the  impatience  of  words  he  was  wont  to  show  in 
war.  He  could  enjoy  every  play  of  invention,  a 
romance,  a  bon  mot,  as  well  as  a  stratagem  in  a 
campaign.  He  delighted  to  fascinate  Josephine  and 
her  ladies,  in  a  dim-lighted  apartment,  by  the  terrors 
of  a  fiction,  to  which  his  voice  and  dramatic  power 
lent  every  addition. 

I  call  Napoleon  the  agent  or  attorney  of  the  mid 
dle  class  of  modern  society ;  of  the  throng  who  fill 
the  markets,  shops,  counting-houses,  manufactories, 
ships,  of  the  modern  world,  aiming  to  be  rich.  He 
was  the  agitator,  the  destroyer  of  prescription,  the 
internal  improver,  the  liberal,  the  radical,  the  invent 
or  of  means,  the  opener  of  doors  and  markets,  the 


204  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

subverter  of  monopoly  and  abuse.  Of  course,  the 
rich  and  aristocratic  did  not  like  him.  England,  the 
centre  of  capital,  and  Rome  and  Austria,  centres  of 
tradition  and  genealogy,  opposed  him.  The  con 
sternation  of  the  dull  and  conservative  classes,  the 
terror  of  the  foolish  old  mea  and  old  women  of  the 
Roman  conclave,  —  who  in  their  despair  took  hold 
of  anything,  and  would  cling  to  red-hot  iron,  —  the 
vain  attempts  of  statists  to  amuse  and  deceive  him, 
of  the  emperor  of  Austria  to  bribe  him ;  and  the 
instinct  of  the  young,  ardent,  and  active  men,  every 
where,  which  pointed  him  out  as  the  giant  of  the 
middle  class,  make  his  history  bright  and  command 
ing.  He  had  the  virtues  of  the  masses  of  his  con 
stituents  :  he  had  also  their  vices.  I  am  sorry  that 
the  brilliant  picture  has  its  reverse.  But  that  is  the 
fatal  quality  which  we  discover  in  our  pursuit  of 
wealth,  that  it  is  treacherous,  and  is  bought  by  the 
breaking  or  weakening  of  the  sSntiments :  and  it  is 
inevitable  that  we  should  find  the  same  fact  in  the 
history  of  this  champion,  who  proposed  to  himself 
simply  a  brilliant  career,  without  any  stipulation  or 
scruple  concerning  the  means. 

Bonaparte  was  singularly  destitute  of  generous 
sentiments.  The  highest-placed  individual  in  the 
most  cultivated  age  and  population  of  the  world,  — 
he  has  not  the  merit  of  common  truth  and  honesty. 
He  is  unjust  to  his  generals  ;  egotistic,  and  monopo 
lizing;  meanly  stealing  the  credit  of  their  great 
actions  from  Kellermann,  from  Bernadotte ;  intrigu 
ing  to  involve  his  faithful  Junot  in  hopeless  bank 
ruptcy,  in  order  to  drive  him  to  a  distance  from 


NAPOLEON.  205 

Paris,  because  the  familiarity  of  his  manners  offends 
the  new  pride  of  his  throne.  He  is  a  boundless 
liar.  The  official  paper,  his  "  Moniteurs."  and  all 
his  bulletins,  are  proverbs  for  saying  what  he  wished 
to  be  believed ;  and  worse,  —  he  sat,  in  his  prema 
ture  old  age,  in  his  lonely  island,  coldly  falsifying 
facts,  and  dates,  and  characters,  and  giving  to  his 
tory  a  theatrical  £clat.  Like  all  Frenchmen,  he  has 
a  passion  for  stage  effect.  Every  action  that  breathes 
of  generosity  is  poisoned  by  this  calculation.  His 
star,  his  love  of  glory,  his  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  are  all  French.  "I  must  dazzle  and 
astonish.  If  I  were  to  give  the  liberty  of  the  press, 
my  power  could  not  last  three  days."  To  make  a 
great  noise  is  his  favorite  design.  < '  A  great  reputa 
tion  is  a  great  noise :  the  more  there  is  made,  the 
farther  off  it  is  heard.  Laws,  institutions,  monu 
ments,  nations,  all  fall ;  but  the  noise  continues,  and 
resounds  in  after  ages.11  His  doctrine  of  immortality 
is  simply  fame.  His  theory  of  influence  is  not  flat 
tering.  "  There  are  two  levers  for  moving  men, — 
interest  and  fear.  Love  is  a  silly  infatuation,  depend 
upon  it.  Friendship  is  but  a  name.  I  love  nobody. 
I  do  not  even  love  my  brothers :  perhaps  Joseph,  a 
little,  from  habit,  and  because  he  is  my  elder;  and 
Duroc,  I  love  him  too;  but  why?  —  because  his 
character  pleases  me  :  he  is  stern  and  resolute,  and, 
I  believe,  the  fellow  never  shed  a  tear.  For  my 
part,  I  know  very  well  that  I  have  no  true  friends. 
As  long  as  I  continue  to  be  what  I  am,  I  may  have 
as  many  pretended  friends  as  I  please.  Leave  sen 
sibility  to  women ;  but  men  should  be  firm  in  heart 


206  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  purpose,  or  they  should  have  nothing  to  do  with 
war  and  government."  He  was  thoroughly  unscru 
pulous.  He  would  steal,  slander,  assassinate,  drown, 
and  poison,  as  his  interest  dictated.  He  had  no 
generosity,  but  mere  vulgar  hatred ;  he  was  intensely 
selfish  ;  he  was  perfidious  ;  he  cheated  at  cards  ;  he 
was  a  prodigious  gossip,  and  opened  letters,  and 
delighted  in  his  infamous  police,  and  rubbed  his 
hands  with  joy  when  he  had  intercepted  some  mor 
sel  of  intelligence  concerning  the  men  and  women 
about  him,  boasting  that  "he  knew  everything;" 
and  interfered  with  the  cutting  the  dresses  of  the 
women ;  and  listened  after  the  hurrahs  and  the  com 
pliments  of  the  street,  incognito.  His  manners  were 
coarse.  He  treated  women  with  low  familiarity.  He 
had  the  habit  of  pulling  their  ears  and  pinching  their 
cheeks  when  he  was  in  good  humor,  and  of  pulling  the 
ears  and  whiskers  of  men,  and  of  striking  and  horse 
play  with  them,  to  his  last  days/  It  does  not  appear 
that  he  listened  at  key-holes,  or,  at  least, that  he  was 
caught  at  it.  In  short,  when  you  have  penetrated 
through  all  the  circles  of  power  and  splendor,  you 
were  not  dealing  with  a  gentleman,  at  last,  but  with 
an  impostor  and  a  rogue ;  and  he  fully  deserves  the 
epithet  of  Jupiter  Scapin,  or  a  sort  of  Scamp  Jupiter. 

In  describing  the  two  parties  into  which  modern 
society  divides  itself,  —  the  democrat  and  the  con 
servative, —  I  said  Bonaparte  represents  the  demo 
crat,  or  the  party  of  men  of  business,  against  the 
stationary  or  conservative  party.  I  omitted  then  to 
say,  what  is  material  to  the  statement :  —  namely,  that 


NAPOLEON.  207 

these  two  parties  differ  only  as  young  and  old.  The 
democrat  is  a  young  conservative ;  the  conservative 
is  an  old  democrat.  The  aristocrat  is  the  democrat 
ripe  and  gone  to  seed,  —  because  both  parties  stand 
on  the  one  ground  of  the  supreme  value  of  property, 
which  one  endeavors  to  get,  and  the  other  to  keep. 
Bonaparte  may  be  said  to  represent  the  whole  history  of 
this  party,  its  youth  and  its  age  ;  yes,  and  with  poetic 
justice,  its  fate,  in  his  own.  The  counter-revolution, 
the  counter-party,  still  waits  for  its  organ  and  repre 
sentative,  in  a  lover  and  a  man  of  truly  public  and 
universal  aims. 

Here  was  an  experiment,  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions,  of  the  powers  of  intellect  without  con 
science.  Never  was  such  a  leader  so  endowed,  and 
so  weaponed ;  never  leader  found  such  aids  and  fol 
lowers.  And  what  was  the  result  of  this  vast  talent 
and  power,  of  these  immense  armies,  burned  cities, 
squandered  treasures,  immolated  millions  of  men,  of 
this  demoralized  Europe?  It  came  to  no  result.  All 
passed  away,  like  the  smoke  of  his  artillery,  and  left 
no  trace.  He  left  France  smaller,  poorer,  feebler, 
than  he  found  it ;  and  the  whole  contest  for  freedom 
was  to  be  begun  again.  The  attempt  was,  in  prin 
ciple,  suicidal.  France  served  him  with  life,  and 
limb,  and  estate,  as  long  as  it  could  identify  its  in 
terest  with  him ;  but  when  men  saw  that  after  vic 
tory  was  another  war ;  after  the  destruction  of  armies, 
new  conscriptions ;  and  they  who  had  toiled  so  des 
perately  were  never  nearer  to  the  reward,  —  they 
could  not  spend  what  they  had  earned,  nor  repose 
on  their  down-beds,  nor  strut  in  their  chateaux, — 


208  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

they  deserted  him.  Men  found  that  his  absorbing 
egotism  was  deadly  to  all  other  men.  It  resembled 
the  torpedo,  which  inflicts  a  succession  of  shocks  on 
any  one  who  takes  hold  of  it,  producing  spasms 
which  contract  the  muscles  of  the  hand,  so  that  the 
man  cannot  open  his  fingers ;  and  the  animal  in 
flicts  new  and  more  violent  shocks,  until  he  paralyzes 
and  kills  his  victim.  So  this  exorbitant  egotist  nar 
rowed,  impoverished,  and  absorbed  the  power  and 
existence  of  those  who  served  him  ;  and  the  universal 
cry  of  France  and  of  Europe  in  1814  was,  "  enough 
of  him  ;  "  "  assez  de  Bonaparte" 

It  was  not  Bonaparte's  fault.  He  did  all  that  in 
him  lay  to  live  and  thrive  without  moral  principle. 
It  was  the  nature  of  things,  the  eternal  law  of  man 
and  of  the  world,  which  balked  and  ruined  him ; 
and  the  result,  in  a  million  experiments,  will  be  the 
same.  Every  experiment,  by  multitudes  or  by  indi 
viduals,  that  has  a  sensual  and 'selfish  aim  will  fail. 
The  pacific  Fourier  will  be  as  inefficient  as  the  per 
nicious  Napoleon.  As  long  as  our  civilization  is  es 
sentially  one  of  property,  offences,  of  exclusiveness, 
it  will  be  mocked  by  delusions.  Our  riches  will  leave 
us  sick ;  there  will  be  bitterness  in  our  laughter ;  and 
our  wine  will  burn  our  mouth.  Only  that  good 
profits,  which  we  can  taste  with  all  doors  open,  and 
which  serves  all  men. 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER. 


(209) 


GOETHE. 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          211 

VII. 

GOETHE;    OR,    THE   WRITER. 


I  FIND  a  provision  in  the  constitution  of  the 
world  for  the  writer  or  secretary  who  is  to  report 
the  doings  of  the  miraculous  spirit  of  life  that 
everywhere  throbs  and  works.  His  office  is  a  re 
ception  of  the  facts  into  the  mind,  and  then  a 
selection  of  the  eminent  and  characteristic  experi 
ences. 

Nature  will  be  reported.  All  things  are  engaged 
in  writing  their  history.  The  planet,  the  pebble, 
goes  attended  by  its  shadow.  The  rolling  rock 
leaves  its  scratches  on  the  mountain ;  the  river,  its 
channel  in  the  soil ;  the  animal,  its  bones  in  the 
stratum ;  the  fern  and  leaf,  their  modest  epitaph  in 
the  coal.  The  falling  drop  makes  its  sculpture  in 
the  sand  or  the  stone.  Not  a  foot  steps  into  the 
snow,  or  along  the  ground,  but  prints,  in  charac 
ters  more  or  less  lasting,  a  map  of  its  march. 
Every  act  of  the  man  inscribes  itself  in  the  mem 
ories  of  his  fellows,  and  in  his  own  manners  and 
face.  The  air  is  full  of  sounds ;  the  sky,  of  tokens ; 
the  ground  is  all  memoranda  and  signatures;  and 
every  object  covered  over  with  hints,  which  speak 
to  the  intelligent. 


212  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

In  nature  this  self-registration  is  incessant,  and 
the  narrative  is  the  print  of  the  seal.  It  neither 
exceeds  nor  comes  short  of  the  fact.  But  nature 
strives  upward;  and,  in  man,  the  report  is  some 
thing  more  than  print  of  the  seal.  It  -is  a  new  and 
finer  form  of  the  original.  The  record  is  alive, 
as  that  which  it  recorded  is  alive.  In  man,  the 
memory  is  a  kind  of  looking-glass,  which,  having 
received  the  images  of  surrounding  objects,  is 
touched  with  life,  and  disposes  them  in  a  new 
order.  The  facts  which  transpired  do  not  lie  in 
it  inert;  but  some  subside,  and  others  shine,  so 
that  soon  we  have  a  new  picture,  composed  of  the 
eminent  experiences.  The  man  cooperates.  He 
loves  to  communicate ;  and  that  which  is  for  him 
to  say  lies  as  a  load  on  his  heart  until  it  is  deliv 
ered.  But,  besides  the  universal  joy  of  conversa 
tion,  some  men  are  born  with  exalted  powers  for 
this  second  creation.  Men  are  born  to  write. 
The  gardener  saves  every  slip,  and  seed,  and 
peach-stone ;  his  vocation  is  to  be  a  planter  of 
plants.  Not  less  does  the  writer  attend  his  affair. 
Whatever  he  beholds  or  experiences,  comes  to  him 
as  a  model,  and  sits  for  its  picture.  He  counts 
it  all  nonsense  that  they  say  that  some  things 
are  undescribable.  He  believes  that  all  that  can 
be  thought  can  be  written,  first  or  last ;  and  he 
would  report  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  attempt  it. 
Nothing  so  broad,  so  subtle,  or  so  dear  but  comes 
therefore  commended  to  his  pen  —  and  he  will 
write.  In  his  eyes,  a  man  is  the  faculty  of  report 
ing,  and  the  universe  is  the  possibility  of  being 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          213 

reported.  In  conversation,  in  calamity,  he  finds 
new  materials;  as  our  German  poet  said,  "Some 
god  gave  me  the  power  to  paint  what  I  suffer." 
He  draws  his  rents  from  rage  and  pain.  By  acting 
rashly,  he  buys  the  power  of  talking  wisely. 
Vexations  and  a  tempest  of  passion  only  fill  his 
sail;  as  the  good  Luther  writes,  "When  I  .am 
angry,  I  can  pray  well  and  preach  well ;  "  and, 
if  we  knew  the  genesis  of  fine  strokes  of  elo 
quence,  they  might  recall  the  complaisance  of 
Sultan  Amurath,  who  struck  off  some  Persian 
heads  that  his  physician,  Vesalius,  might  see  the 
spasms  in  the  muscles  of  the  neck.  His  failures 
are  the  preparation  of  his  victories.  A  new 
thought  or  a  crisis  of  passion  apprises  him  that 
all  that  he  has  yet  learned  and  written  is  exoteric, 
—  is  not  the  fact,  but  some  rumor  of  the  fact.' 
What  then?  Does  he  throw  away  the  pen?  No, 
he  begins  again  to  describe  in  the  new  light 
which  has  shined  on  him,  —  if,  by  some  means, 
he  may  yet  save  some  true  word.  Nature  con 
spires.  Whatever  can  be  thought  can  be  spoken, 
and  still  rises  for  utterance,  though  to  rude*  and 
stammering  organs.  If  they  cannot  compass  it, 
it  waits  and  works,  until,  at  last,  it  moulds  them 
to  its  perfect  will,  and  is  articulated. 

This  striving  after  imitative  expression,  which 
one  meets  everywhere,  is  significant  of  the  aim 
of  nature,  but  is  mere  stenography.  There  are 
higher  degrees,  and  nature  has  more  splendid 
endowments  for  those  whom  she  elects  to  a  supe 
rior  office ;  for  the  class  of  scholars  or  writers  who 


214  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

see  connection  where  the  multitude  see  fragments, 
and  who  are  impelled  to  exhibit  the  facts  in  order, 
and  so  to  supply  the  axis  on  which  the  frame  of 
things  turns.  Nature  has  dearly  at  heart  the  for 
mation  of  the  speculative  man  or  scholar.  It  is  an 
end  never  lost  sight  of,  and  is  prepared  in  the 
original  casting  of  things.  He  is  no  permissive 
or  accidental  appearance,  but  an  organic  agent, 
one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm,  provided  and  pre 
pared  from  of  old  and  from  everlasting,  in  the  knit 
ting  and  contexture  of  things.  Presentiments, 
impulses,  cheer  him.  There  is  a  certain  heat  in 
the  breast,  which  attends  the  perception  of  a  pri 
mary  truth  which  is  the  shining  of  the  spiritual  sun 
down  into  the  shaft  of  the  mine.  Every  thought 
which  dawns  on  the  mind,  in  the  moment  of  its 
emergence,  announces  its  own  rank,  — whether  it  is 
some  whimsey,  or  whether  it  is  a  power. 

If  he  have  his  incitements,  there  is,  on  the  other 
side,  invitation  and  need  enough  of  his  gift.  Society 
has,  at  all  times,  the  same  want ;  namely,  of  one 
sane  man  with  adequate  powers  of  expression  to  hold 
up  each  object  of  monomania  in  its  right  relations. 
The  ambitious  and  mercenary  bring  their  last  new 
mumbo-jumbo,  whether  tariff,  Texas,  railroad, 
Romanism,  mesmerism,  or  California,  and  by  de 
taching  the  object  from  its  relations,  easily  succeed 
in  making  it  seen  in  a  glare  ;  and  a  multitude  go  mad 
about  it,  and  they  are  not  to  be  reproved  or  cured  by 
the  opposite  multitude,  who  are  kept  from  this  par 
ticular  insanity  by  an  equal  frenzy  on  another  crotchet. 
But  let  one  man  have  the  comprehensive  eye  that  can 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.        215 

replace  this  isolated  prodigy  in  its  right  neighbor 
hood  and  bearings,  — the  illusion  vanishes,  and  the 
returning  reason  of  the  community  thanks  the  reason 
of  the  monitor. 

The  scholar  is  the  man  of  the  ages,  but  he  must 
also  wish  with  other  men  to  stand  well  with  his  con 
temporaries.  But  there  is  a  certain  ridicule,  among 
superficial  people,  thrown  on  the  scholars  or  clcrisy, 
which  is  of  no  import,  unless  the  scholar  heed  it.  In 
this  country,  the  emphasis  of  conversation  and  of 
public  opinion  commends  the  practical  man;  and 
the  solid  portion  of  the  community  is  named  with 
significant  respect  in  every  circle.  Our  people  are  of 
Bonaparte's  opinion  concerning  ideologists.  Ideas 
are  subversive  of  social  order  and  comfort,  and  at 
last  make  a  fool  of  the  possessor.  It  is  believed  the 
ordering  a  cargo  of  goods  from  New  York  to  Smyrna  ; 
or  the  running  up  and  down  to  procure  a  company 
of  subscribers  to  set  a-going  five  or  ten  thousand 
spindles ;  or  the  negotiations  of  a  caucus,  and  the 
practising  on  the  prejudices  and  facility  of  country- 
people,  to  secure  their  votes  in  November,  —  is  prac 
tical  and  commendable. 

If  I  were  to  compare  action  of  a  much  higher  strain 
with  a  life  of  contemplation,  I  should  not  venture  to 
pronounce  with  much  confidence  in  favor  of  the 
former.  Mankind  have  such  a  deep  stake  in  inward 
illumination,  that  there  is  much  to  be  said  by  the 
hermit  or  monk  in  defence  of  his  life  of  thought  and 
prayer.  A  certain  partiality,  a  headiness,  and  loss 
of  balance  is  the  tax  which  all  action  must  pay. 
Act,  if  you  like,  —  but  you  do  it  at  your  peril.  Men's 


21 6  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

actions  are  too  strong  for  them.  Show  me  a  man 
who  has  acted,  and  who  has  not  been  the  victim  and 
slave  of  his  action.  What  they  have  done  commits 
and  enforces  them  to  do  the  same  again.  The  first 
act,  which  was  to  be  an  experiment,  becomes  a  sacra 
ment.  The  fiery  reformer  embodies  his  aspiration  in 
some  rite  or  covenant,  and  he  and  his  friends  cleave 
to  the  form,  and  lose  the  aspiration.  The  Quaker 
has  established  Quakerism,  the  Shaker  has  estab 
lished  his  monastery  and  his  dance ;  and  although 
each  prates  of  spirit,  there  is  no  spirit,  but  repetition, 
which  is  anti-spiritual.  But  where  are  his  new  things 
of  to-day?  In  actions  of  enthusiasm  this  drawback 
appears ;  but  in  those  lower  activities,  which  have  no 
higher  aim  than  to  make  us  more  comfortable  and 
more  cowardly,  in  actions  of  cunning,  actions  that 
steal  and  lie,  actions  that  divorce  the  specu 
lative  from  the  practical  faculty,  and  put  a  ban 
on  reason  and  sentiment,  the/e  is  nothing  else 
but  drawback  and  negation.  The  Hindoos  write 
in  their  sacred  books  :  —  "  Children  only,  and  not  the 
learned,  speak  of  the  speculative  and  the  practical 
faculties  as  two.  They  are  but  one,  for  both  obtain 
the  selfsame  end,  and  the  place  which  is  gained  by 
the  followers  of  the  one  is  gained  by  the  followers  of 
the  other.  That  man  seeth,  who  seeth  that  the 
speculative  and  the  practical  doctrines  are  one.1'  For 
great  action  must  draw  on  the  spiritual  nature.  The 
measure  of  action  is  the  sentiment  from  which  it  pro 
ceeds.  The  greatest  action  may  easily  be  one  of  the 
most  private  circumstance. 

This  disparagement  will  not  come  from  the  leaders, 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.         217 

but  from  inferior  persons.  The  robust  gentlemen 
who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  practical  class  share 
the  ideas  of  the  time,  and  have  too  much  sympathy 
with  the  speculative  class.  It  is  not  from  men  ex 
cellent  in  any  kind,  that  disparagement  of  any  other 
is  to  be  looked  for.  With  such,  Talleyrand's  ques 
tion  is  ever  the  main  one  ;  not,  is  he  rich  ?  is  he 
committed?  is  he  well-meaning?  has  he  this  or  that 
faculty?  is  he  of  the  movement;  is  he  of  the  estab 
lishment? —  but,  Is  he  anybody?  does  he  stand  for 
something?  He  must  be  good  of  his  kind.  That 
is  all  that  Talleyrand,  all  that  State  street,  all  that 
the  common  sense  of  mankind  asks.  Be  real  and 
admirable,  not  as  we  know,  but  as  you  know.  Able 
men  do  not  care  in  what  kind  a  man  is  able,  so  only 
that  he  is  able.  A  master  likes  a  master,  and  does 
not  stipulate  whether  it  be  orator,  artist,  craftsman, 
or  king. 

Society  has  really  no  graver  interest  than  the  well- 
being  of  the  literary  class.  And  it  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  men  are  cordial  in  their  recognition  and 
welcome  of  intellectual  accomplishments.  Still  the 
writer  does  not  stand  with  us  on  any  commanding 
ground.  I  think  this  to  be  his  own  fault.  A  pound 
passes  for  a  pound.  There  have  been  times  when 
he  was  a  sacred  person :  he  wrote  Bibles ;  the  first 
hymns  ;  the  codes  ;  the  epics  ;  tragic  songs  ;  Sibyl 
line  verses ;  Chaldean  oracles ;  Laconian  sentences, 
inscribed  on  temple  walls.  Every  word  was  true, 
and  woke  the  nations  to  new  life.  He  wrote  without 
levity  and  without  choice.  Every  word  was  carved 
before  his  eyes  into  the  earth  and  the  sky ;  and  the 


2l8  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sun  and  stars  were  only  letters  of  the  same  pur 
port,  and  of  no  more  necessity.  But  how  can  he  be 
honored,  when  he  does  not  honor  himself;  when  he 
loses  himself  in  the  crowd;  when  he  is  no  longer 
the  lawgiver,  but  the  sycophant,  ducking  to  the  giddy 
opinion  of  a  reckless  public ;  when  he  must  sustain 
with  shameless  advocacy  some  bad  government,  or 
must  bark,  all  the  year  round,  in  opposition;  or 
write  conventional  criticism  or  profligate  novels  ;  or, 
at  any  rate,  write  without  thought,  and  without 
recurrence,  by  day  and  by  night,  to  the  sources  of 
inspiration  ? 

Some  reply  to  these  questions  may  be  furnished 
by  looking  over  the  list  of  men  of  literary  genius  in 
our  age.  Among  these  no  more  instructive  name 
occurs  than  that  of  Goethe,  to  represent  the  powers 
and  duties  of  the  scholar  or  writer. 

I  described  Bonaparte  as  a  representative  of  the 
popular  external  life  and  aims  of/the  nineteenth  cent 
ury.  Its  other  half,  its  poet,  is  Goethe,  a  man 
quite  domesticated  in  the  century,  breathing  its  air, 
enjoying  its  fruits,  impossible  at  any  earlier  time, 
and  taking  away,  by  his  colossal  parts,  the  reproach 
of  weakness,  which,  but  for  him,  would  lie  on  the 
intellectual  works  of  the  period.  He  appears  at  a 
time  when  a  general  culture  has  spread  itself,  and 
has  smoothed  down  all  sharp  individual  traits ; 
when,  in  the  absence  of  heroic  characters,  a 
social  comfort  and  cooperation  have  come  in. 
There  is  no  poet,  but  scores  of  poetic  writers; 
no  Columbus,  but  hundreds  of  post-captains,  with 
transit-telescope,  barometer,  and  concentrated  soup 


GOETHE;    OR,     THE    WRITER.          219 

and  pemmican;  no  Demosthenes,  no  Chatham, 
but  any  number  of  clever  parliamentary  and  fo 
rensic  debaters ;  no  prophet  or  saint,  but  colleges 
of  divinity ;  no  learned  man,  but  learned  societies, 
a  cheap  press,  reading-rooms,  and  book-clubs 
without  number.  There  was  never  such  a  mis 
cellany  of  facts.  The  world  extends  itself  like 
American  trade.  We  conceive  Greek  or  Roman  life 
—  life  in  the  middle  ages  —  to  be  a  simple  and  com 
prehensible  affair ;  but  modern  life  to  respect  a 
multitude  of  things,  which  is  distracting. 

Goethe  was  the  philosopher  of  this  multiplicity: 
hundred-handed,  Argus-eyed,  able  and  happy  to  cope 
with  this  rolling  miscellany  of  facts  and  sciences,  and, 
by  his  own  versatility,  to  dispose  of  them  with  ease ; 
a  manly  mind,  unembarrassed  by  the  variety  of  coats 
of  convention  with  which  life  had  got  encrusted, 
easily  able  by  his  subtlety  to  pierce  these,  and  to 
draw  his  strength  from  nature,  with  which  he  lived 
in  full  communion.  What  is  strange,  too,  he  lived 
in  a  small  town,  in  a  petty  state,  in  a  defeated  state, 
and  in  a  time  when  Germany  played  no  such  leading 
part  in  the  world's  affairs  as  to  swell  the  bosom  of 
her  sons  with  any  metropolitan  pride,  such  as  might 
have  cheered  a  French,  or  English,  or,  once,  a  Ro 
man,  or  Attic  genius.  Yet  there  is  no  trace  of  pro 
vincial  limitation  in  his  muse.  He  is  not  a  debtor 
to  his  position,  but  was  born  with  a  free  and  con 
trolling  genius. 

The  Helena,  or  the  second  part  of  Faust,  is  a  phi 
losophy  of  literature  set  in  poetry ;  the  work  of  one 
who  found  himself  the  master  of  histories,  mytholo- 


220  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

gies,  philosophies,  sciences,  and  national  literatures, 
in  the  encyclopaedical  manner  in  which  modern  eru 
dition,  with  its  international  intercourse  of  the  whole 
earth^  population,  researches  into  Indian,  Etruscan, 
and  all  Cyclopaean  arts,  geology,  chemistry,  astron 
omy;  and  every  one  of  these  kingdoms  assuming  a 
certain  aerial  and  poetic  character,  by  reason  of  the 
multitude.  One  looks  at  a  king  with  reverence  ;  but 
if  one  should  chance  to  be  at  a  congress  of  kings,  the 
eye  would  take  liberties  with  the  peculiarities  of  each. 
These  are  not  wild  miraculous  songs,  but  elaborate 
forms,  to  which  the  poet  has  confided  the  results  of 
eighty  years  of  observation.  This  reflective  and  crit 
ical  wisdom  makes  the  poem  more  truly  the  flower  of 
this  time.  It  dates  itself.  Still  he  is  a  poet,  — poet 
of  a  prouder  laurel  than  any  contemporary,  and,  under 
this  plague  of  microscopes  (for  he  seems  to  see  out 
of  every  pore  of  his  skin),  strikes  the  harp  with  a 
hero's  strength  and  grace.  ' 

The  wonder  of  the  book  is  its  superior  intelligence. 
In  the  menstruum  of  this  man's  wit,  the  past  and  the 
present  ages,  and  their  religions,  politics,  and  modes 
of  thinking,  are  dissolved  into  archetypes  and  ideas. 
What  new  mythologies  sail  through  his  head !  The 
Greeks  said  that  Alexander  went  as  far  as  Chaos ; 
Goethe  went  only  the  other  day  as  far ;  and  one  step 
farther  he  hazarded,  and  brought  himself  safe  back. 
There  is  a  heart-cheering  freedom  in  his  speculation. 
The  immense  horizon  which  journeys  with  us  lends 
its  majesty  to  trifles,  and  to  matters  of  convenience 
and  necessity,  as  to  solemn  and  festal  performances. 
He  was  the  soul  of  his  century.  If  that  was  learned, 


GOETHE;    OR    THE    WRITER.  221 

and  had  become,  by  population,  compact  organiza 
tion,  and  drill  of  parts,  one  great  exploring  expedi 
tion,  accumulating  a  glut  of  facts  and  fruits  too  fast 
for  any  hitherto-existing  savans  to  classify,  this  man's 
mind  had  ample  chambers  for  the  distribution  of  all. 
He  had  a  power  to  unite  the  detached  atoms  again 
by  their  own  law.  He  has  clothed  our  modern  exist 
ence  with  poetry.  Amid  littleness  and  detail,  he 
detected  the  genius  of  life,  the  old  cunning  Proteus, 
nestling  close  beside  us,  and  showed  that  the  dulness 
and  prose  we  ascribe  to  the  age  was  only  another  of 
his  masks :  — 

"  His  very  flight  is  presence  in  disguise  ;  " 

that  he  had  put  off  a  gay  uniform  for  a  fatigue-dress, 
and  was  not  a  whit  less  vivacious  or  rich  in  Liver 
pool  or  the  Hague,  than  once  in  Rome  or  Antioch. 
He  sought  him  in  public  squares  and  main  streets, 
in  boulevards  and  hotels ;  and  in  the  solidest  king 
dom  of  routine  and  the  senses  he  showed  the  lurk 
ing  daemonic  power,  that  in  actions  of  routine  a 
thread  of  mythology  and  fable  spins  itself;  and  this, 
by  tracing  the  pedigree  of  every  usage  and  practice, 
every  institution,  utensil,  and  means,  home  to  its 
origin  in  the  structure  of  man.  He  had  an  extreme 
impatience  of  conjecture  and  of  rhetoric.  "  I  have 
guesses  enough  of  my  own ;  if  a  man  write  a  book, 
let  him  set  down  only  what  he  knows."  He  writes 
in  the  plainest  and  lowest  tone,  omitting  a  great  deal 
more  than  he  writes,  and  putting  ever  a  thing  for  a 
word.  He  has  explained  the  distinction  between 


222  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

the  antique  and  the  modern  spirit  and  art.  He  has 
defined  art,  its  scope  and  laws.  He  has  said  the 
best  things  about  nature  that  ever  were  said.  He 
treats  nature  as  the  old  philosophers,  as  the  seven 
wise  masters  did,  —  and,  with  whatever  loss  of 
French  tabulation  and  dissection,  poetry  and  hu 
manity  remain  to  us ;  and  they  have  some  doctoral 
skill.  Eyes  are  better,  on  the  whole,  than  telescopes 
or  microscopes.  He  has  contributed  a  key  to  many 
parts  of  nature,  through  the  rare  turn  of  unity  and 
simplicity  in  his  mind.  Thus  Goethe  suggested  the 
leading  idea  of  modern  botany,  that  a  leaf,  or  the 
eye  of  a  leaf,  is  the  unit  of  botany,  and  that  every 
part  of  the  plant  is  only  a  transformed  leaf  to  meet 
a  new  condition ;  and,  by  varying  the  conditions,  a 
leaf  may  be  converted  into  any  other  organ,  and  any 
other  organ  into  a  leaf.  In  like  manner,  in  oste 
ology,  he  assumed  that  one  vertebra  of  the  spine 
might  be  considered  the  unit  of  the  skeleton :  the 
head  was  only  the  uppermost  vertebra  transformed. 
"  The  plant  goes  from  knot  to  knot,  closing,  at  last, 
with  the  flower  and  the  seed.  So  the  tapeworm, 
the  caterpillar,  goes  from  knot  to  knot,  and  closes 
with  the  head.  Man  and  the  higher  animals  are 
built  up  through  the  vertebrae,  the  powers  being 
concentrated  in  the  head."  In  optics,  again,  he  re 
jected  the  artificial  theory  of  seven  colors,  and  con 
sidered  that  every  color  was  the  mixture  of  light  and 
darkness  in  new  proportions.  It  is  really  of  very 
little  consequence  what  topic  he  writes  upon.  He 
sees  at  every  pore,  and  has  a  certain  gravitation 
towards  truth.  He  will  realize  what  you  say.  He 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          223 

hates  to  be  trifled  with,  and  to  be  made  to  say  over 
again  some  old  wife's  fable,  that  has  had  possession 
of  men's  faith  these  thousand  years.  He  may  as 
well  see  if  it  is  true  as  another.  He  sifts  it.  I  am 
here,  he  would  say,  to  be  the  measure  and  judge  of 
these  things.  Why  should  I  take  them  on  trust? 
And,  therefore,  what  he  says  of  religion,  of  passion, 
of  marriage,  of  manners,  of  property,  of  paper 
money,  of  periods  of  belief,  of  omens,  of  luck,  or 
whatever  else,  refuses  to  be  forgotten. 

Take  the  most  remarkable  example  that  could  oc 
cur  of  this  tendency  to  verify  every  term  in  popular 
use.  The  devil  had  played  an  important  part  in 
mythology  in  all  times.  Goethe  would  have  no  word 
that  does  not  cover  a  thing.  The  same  measure  will 
still  serve  :  —  "I  have  never  heard  of  any  crime  which 
I  might  not  have  committed."  So  he  flies  at  the 
throat  of  this  imp.  He  shall  be  real ;  he  shall  be 
modern ;  he  shall  be  European ;  he  shall  dress  like  a 
gentleman,  and  accept  the  manners,  and  walk  in  the 
streets,  and  be  well  initiated  in  the  life  of  Vienna 
and  of  Heidelberg,  in  1820,  —  or  he  shall  not  exist. 
Accordingly,  he  stripped  him  of  mythologic  gear,  of 
horns,  cloven  foot,  harpoon  tail,  brimstone,  and 
blue-fire,  and,  instead  of  looking  in  books  and  pict 
ures,  looked  for  him  in  his  own  mind,  in  every 
shade  of  coldness,  selfishness,  and  unbelief  that,  in 
crowds  or  in  solitude,  darkens  over  the  human 
thought,  —  and  found  that  the  portrait  gained  reality 
and  terror  by  everything  he  added,  and  by  every 
thing  he  took  away.  He  found  that  the  essence  of 
this  hobgoblin,  which  had  hovered  in  shadow  about 


224  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

the  habitations  of  men  ever  since  there  were  men, 
was  pure  intellect  applied  —  as  always  there  is  a 
tendency  —  to  the  service  of  the  senses ;  and  he 
flung  into  literature,  in  his  Mephistopheles,  the  first 
organic  figure  that  has  been  added  for  some  ages, 
and  which  will  remain  as  long  as  the  Prometheus. 

I  have  no  design  to  enter  into  any  analysis  of  his 
numerous  works.  They  consist  of  translations,  criti 
cism,  dramas,  lyric  and  every  other  description  of 
poems,  literary  journals,  and  portraits  of  distinguished 
men.  Yet  I  cannot  omit  to  specify  the  Wilhelm 
Meister. 

Wilhelm  Meister  is  a  novel  in  every  sense,  the  first 
of  its  kind,  called  by  its  admirers  the  only  delineation 
of  modern  society,  —  as  if  other  novels,  those  of 
Scott,  for  example,  dealt  with  costume  and  condition, 
this  with  the  spirit  of  life.  It  is  a  book  over  which 
some  veil  is  still  drawn.  It  is  read  by  very  intelli 
gent  persons  with  wonder  and  Selight.  It  is  pre 
ferred  by  some  such  to  Hamlet,  as  a  work  of  genius. 
I  suppose  no  book  of  this  century  can  compare  with 
it  in  its  delicious  sweetness,  so  new,  so  provoking  to 
the  mind,  gratifying  it  with  so  many  and  so  solid 
thoughts,  just  insights  into  life,  and  manners,  and 
characters ;  so  many  good  hints  for  the  conduct  of 
life,  so  many  unexpected  glimpses  into  a  higher 
sphere,  and  never  a  trace  of  rhetoric  or  dulness.  A 
very  provoking  book  to  the  curiosity  of  young  men 
of  genius,  but  a  very  unsatisfactory  one.  Lovers  of 
light  reading,  those  who  look  in  it  for  the  entertain 
ment  they  find  in  a  romance,  are  disappointed. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  begin  it  with  the 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.         225 

higher  hope  to  read  in  it  a  worthy  history  of  geniu ;, 
and  the  just  award  of  the  laurel  to  its  toils  and 
denials,  have  also  reason  to  complain.  We  had  an 
English  romance  here,  not  long  ago,  professing  to 
embody  the  hope  of  a  new  age,  and  to  unfold  the 
political  hope  of  the  party  called  "  Young  England," 
in  which  the  only  reward  of  virtue  is  a  seat  in  Parlia 
ment  and  a  peerage.  Goethe's  romance  has  a  con 
clusion  as  lame  and  immoral.  George  Sand,  in 
Consuelo  and  its  continuation,  has  sketched  a  truer 
and  more  dignified  picture.  In  the  progress  of  the 
story,  the  characters  of  the  hero  and  heroine  expand 
at  a  rate  that  shivers  the  porcelain  chess-table  of 
aristocratic  convention:  they  quit  the  society  and 
habits  of  their  rank  ;  they  lose  their  wealth  ;  they  be 
come  the  servants  of  great  ideas  and  of  the  most 
generous  social  ends ;  until  at  last  the  hero,  who  is 
the  centre  and  fountain  of  an  association  for  the  ren 
dering  of  the  noblest  benefits  to  the  human  race,  no 
longer  answers  to  his  own  titled  name  —  it  sounds 
foreign  and  remote  in  his  ear.  "  I  am  only  man,11 
he  says  ;  "I  breathe  and  work  for  man,"  and  this  in 
poverty  and  extreme  sacrifices.  Goethe's  hero,  on 
the  contrary,  has  so  many  weaknesses  and  impuri 
ties,  and  keeps  such  bad  company,  that  the  sober 
English  public,  when  the  book  was  translated,  were 
disgusted.  And  yet  it  is  so  crammed  with  wisdom, 
with  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  with  knowledge  of 
laws ;  the  persons  so  truly  and  subtly  drawn,  and 
with  such  few  strokes,  and  not  a  word  too  much,  — the 
book  remains  ever  so  new  and  unexhausted,  that  we 
must  even  let  it  go  its  way,  and  be  willing  to  get 


225  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

what  good  from  it  we  can,  assured  that  it  has  only 
begun  its  office,  and  has  millions  of  readers  yet  to 
serve. 

The  argument  is  the  passage  of  a  democrat  to  the 
aristocracy,  using  both  words  in  their  best  sense. 
And  this  passage  is  not  made  in  any  mean  or  creep 
ing  way,  but  through  the  hall  door.  Nature  and 
character  assist,  and  the  rank  is  made  real  by  sense 
and  probity  in  the  nobles.  No  generous  youth  can 
escape  this  charm  of  reality  in  the  book,  so  that  it  is 
highly  stimulating  to  intellect  and  courage. 

The  ardent  and  holy  Novalis  characterized  the 
book  as  ' '  thoroughly  modern  and  prosaic ;  the  ro 
mantic  is  completely  levelled  in  it ;  so  is  the  poetry 
of  nature  ;  the  wonderful.  The  book  treats  only  of 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  men :  it  is  a  poeticized  civic 
and  domestic  story.  The  wonderful  in  it  is  expressly 
treated  as  fiction  and  enthusiastic  dreaming ;  "  and 
yet,  what  is  also  characteristic,  Novalis  soon  returned 
to  this  book,  and  it  remained  his  favorite  reading  to 
the  end  of  his  life. 

What  distinguishes  Goethe  for  French  and  Eng 
lish  readers  is  a  property  which  he  shares  with  his 
nation, — a  habitual  reference  to  interior  truth.  In 
England  and  in  America  there  is  a  respect  for 
talent ;  and  if  it  is  exerted  in  support  of  any  ascer 
tained  or  intelligible  interest  or  party,  or  in  regular 
opposition  to  any,  the  public  is  satisfied.  In  France 
there  is  even  a  greater  delight  in  intellectual  brill 
iancy,  for  its  own  sake.  And  in  all  these  coun 
tries  men  of  talent  write  from  talent.  It  is  enough 
if  the  understanding  is  occupied,  the  taste  propi- 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          22>J 

tiated,  — so  many  columns,  so  many  hours,  filled  in 
a  lively  and  creditable  way.  The  German  intellect 
wants  the  French  sprightliness,  the  fine  practical 
understanding  of  the  English  and  the  American  ad 
venture  ;  but  has  a  certain  probity  which  never 
rests  in  a  superficial  performance,  but  asks  steadily, 
To  what  end?  A  German  public  asks  for  a  control 
ling  sincerity.  Here  is  activity  of  thought ;  but 
what  is  it  for?  What  does  the  man  mean?  Whence, 
whence  all  these  thoughts? 

Talent  alone  cannot  make  a  writer.  There  must 
be  a  man  behind  the  book ;  a  personality  which,  by 
birth  and  quality,  is  pledged  to  the  doctrines  there 
set  forth,  and  which  exists  to  see  and  state  things 
so,  and  not  otherwise ;  holding  things  because  they 
are  things.  If  he  cannot  rightly  express  himself  to 
day,  the  same  things  subsist,  and  will  open  them 
selves  to-morrow.  There  lies  the  burden  on  his 
mind,  — the  burden  of  truth  to  be  declared,  — more 
or  less  understood ;  and  it  constitutes  his  business 
and  calling  in  the  world,  to  see  those  facts  through, 
and  to  make  them  known.  What  signifies  that  he 
trips  and  stammers ;  that  his  voice  is  harsh  or  hiss 
ing  ;  that  his  method  or  his  tropes  are  inadequate  ? 
That  message  will  find  method  and  imagery,  articula 
tion  and  melody.  Though  he  were  dumb,  it  would 
speak.  If  not,  — if  there  be  no  such  God's  word  in 
the  man,  —  what  care  we  how  adroit,  how  fluent, 
how  brilliant  he  is? 

It  makes  a  great  difference  to  the  force  of  any 
sentence  whether  there  be  a  man  behind  it  or  no. 
In  the  learned  journal,  in  the  influential  newspaper, 


228  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

I  discern  no  form  ;  only  some  irresponsible  shadow  ; 
oftener  some  moneyed  corporation,  or  some  dangler, 
who  hopes,  in  the  mask  and  robes  of  his  paragraph, 
to  pass  for  somebody.  But  through  every  clause 
and  part  of  speech  of  a  right  book  I  meet  the  eyes 
of  the  most  determined  of  men :  his  force  and  terror 
inundate  every  word ;  the  commas  and  dashes  are 
alive,  so  that  the  writing  is  athletic  and  nimble,  — 
can  go  far  and  live  long. 

In  England  and  America  one  may  be  an  adept  in 
the  writing  of  a  Greek  or  Latin  poet,  without  any 
poetic  taste  or  fire.  That  a  man  has  spent  years  on 
Plato  and  Proclus  does  not  afford  a  presumption 
that  he  holds  heroic  opinions,  or  undervalues  the 
fashions  of  his  town.  But  the  German  nation  have 
the  most  ridiculous  good  faith  on  these  subjects. 
The  student,  out  of  the  lecture-room,  still  broods  on 
the  lessons  ;  and  the  professor  cannot  divest  himself 
of  the  fancy  that  the  truths  of  philosophy  have  some 
application  to  Berlin  and  Munich.  This,  earnestness 
enables  them  to  outsee  men  of  much  more  talent. 
Hence,  almost  all  the  valuable  distinctions  which  are 
current  in  higher  conversation  have  been  derived  to 
us  from  Germany.  But  whilst  men  distinguished 
for  wit  and  learning  in  England  and  France  adopt 
their  study  and  their  side  with  a  certain  levity,  and 
are  not  understood  to  be  very  deeply  engaged,  from 
grounds  of  character,  to  the  topic  or  the  part  they 
espouse,  Goethe,  the  head  and  body  of  the  German 
nation,  does  not  speak  from  talent,  but  the  truth 
shines  through;  he  is  very  wise,  though  his  talent 
often  veils  his  wisdom.  However  excellent  his  sen- 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          229 

tence  is,  he  has  somewhat  better  in  view.  It 
awakens  my  curiosity.  He  has  the  formidable  in 
dependence  which  converse  with  truth  gives :  hear 
you,  or  forbaar,  his  fact  abides;  and  your  interest 
in  the  writer  is  not  confined  to  his  story,  and  he  dis 
missed  from  memory,  when  he  has  performed  his 
task  creditably,  as  a  baker  when  he  has  left  his  loaf; 
but  his  work  is  the  least  part  of  him.  The  old 
Eternal  Genius  who  built  the  world  has  confided 
himself  more  to  this  man  than  to  any  other.  I  dare 
not  say  that  Goethe  ascended  to  the  highest  grounds 
from  which  genius  has  spoken.  He  has  not  wor 
shipped  the  highest  unity ;  he  is  incapable  of  a  self- 
surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment.  There  are  nobler 
strains  in  poetry  than  any  he  has  sounded.  There 
are  writers  poorer  in  talent,  whose  tone  is  purer,  and 
more  touches  the  heart.  Goethe  can  never  be  dear 
to  men.  His  is  not  even  the  devotion  to  pure  truth, 
but  to  truth  for  the  sake  of  culture.  He  has  no  aims 
less  large  than  the  conquest  of  universal  nature,  of 
universal  truth,  to  be  his  portion ;  a  man  not  to  be 
bribed,  nor  deceived,  nor  overawed  ;  of  a  stoical  self- 
command  and  self-denial,  and  having  one  test  for  all 
men,  —  What  can  you  teach  me  ?  All  possessions  are 
valued  by  him  for  that  only:  rank,  privileges,  health, 
time,  being  itself. 

He  is  the  type  of  culture,  the  amateur  of  all  arts, 
and  sciences,  and  events;  artistic,  but  not  artist; 
spiritual,  but  not  spiritualist.  There  is  nothing  he 
had  not  right  to  know ;  there  is  no  weapon  in  the 
armory  of  universal  genius  he  did  not  take  into  his 
hand,  but  with  peremptory  heed  that  he  should  not 


230  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

be  for  a  moment  prejudiced  by  his  instruments.  He 
lays  a  ray  of  light  under  every  fact,  and  between  him 
self  and  his  dearest  property.  From  him  nothing  was 
hid,  nothing  withholden.  The  lurking  daemons  sat 
to  him,  and  the  saint  who  saw  the  daemons ;  and 
the  metaphysical  elements  took  form.  "  Piety  itself 
is  no  aim,  but  only  a  means,  whereby  through  purest 
inward  peace  we  may  attain  to  highest  culture/1 
And  his  penetration  of  every  secret  of  the  fine  arts 
will  make  Goethe  still  more  statuesque.  His  affec 
tions  help  him,  like  women  employed  by  Cicero  to 
worm  out  the  secret  of  conspirators.  Enmities  he 
has  none.  Enemy  of  him  you  may  be,  —  if  so  you 
shall  teach  him  aught  which  your  good-will  cannot, 

—  were  it  only  what  experience  will  accrue  from  your 
ruin.     Enemy  and  welcome,  but  enemy  on  high  terms. 
He  cannot  hate  anybody ;  his  time  is  worth  too  much. 
Temperamental  antagonisms  may  be  suffered,  but  like 
feuds  of  emperors,  who  fight  dignifiedly  across  king 
doms. 

His  autobiography,  under  the  title  of  ' '  Poetry  and 
Truth  out  of  my  Life,"  is  the  expression  of  the  idea 

—  now  familiar  to  the  world   through  the    German 
mind,  but  a  novelty  to  England,  Old  and  New,  when 
that  book  appeared  —  that  a  man  exists  for  culture  ; 
not  for  what  he  can  accomplish,  but  for  what  can  be 
accomplished  in  him.     The  reaction  of  things  on  the 
man  is  the  only  noteworthy  result.     An  intellectual 
man  can  see  himself  as  a  third  person ;  therefore  his 
faults  and  delusions  interest  him  equally  with  his  suc 
cesses.     Though  he  wishes  to  prosper  in  affairs,  he 
wishes  more  to  know  the  history  and  destiny  of  man  ; 


GOETHE;    OR,    THE    WRITER.          231 

whilst  the  clouds  of  egotists  drifting  about  him  are 
only  interested  in  a  low  success. 

This  idea  reigns  in  the  Dichtung  und  Wahr- 
heit,  and  directs  the  selection  of  the  incidents, 
and  nowise  the  external  importance  of  events,  the 
rank  of  the  personages,  or  the  bulk  of  incomes.  Of 
course,  the  book  affords  slender  materials  for  what 
would  be  reckoned  with  us  a  "  Life  of  Goethe,"  —  few 
dates ;  no  correspondence ;  no  details  of  offices  or 
employments ;  no  light  on  his  marriage ;  and  a 
period  of  ten  years,  that  should  be  the  most  active 
in  his  life,  after  his  settlement  at  Weimar,  is  sunk  in 
silence.  Meantime,  certain  love-affairs,  that  came 
to  nothing,  as  people  say,  have  the  strangest  im 
portance ;  he  crowds  us  with  details,  — certain  whim 
sical  opinions,  cosmogonies,  and  religions  of  his  own 
invention,  and  especially  his  relations  to  remarka 
ble  minds  and  to  critical  epochs  of  thought :  these 
he  magnifies.  His  "Daily  and  Yearly  Journal," 
his  "Italian  Travels,"  his  "Campaign  in  France," 
and  the  historical  part  of  his  "  Theory  of  Colors," 
have  the  same  interest.  In  the  last,  he  rapidly 
notices  Kepler,  Roger  Bacon,  Galileo,  Newton, 
Voltaire,  etc.  ;  and  the  charm  of  this  portion  of 
the  book  consists  in  the  simplest  statement  of  the 
relation  betwixt  these  grandees  of  European  scientific 
history  and  himself;  the  mere  drawing  of  the  lines 
from  Goethe  to  Kepler,  from  Goethe  to  Bacon,  from 
Goethe  to  Newton.  The  drawing  of  the  line  is  for 
the  time  and  person,  a  solution  of  the  formidable 
problem,  and  gives  pleasure  when  Iphigenia  and 
Faust  do  not,  without  any  cost  of  invention  com 
parable  to  that  of  Iphigenia  and  Faust. 


232  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

This  lawgiver  of  art  is  not  an  artist.  Was  it  that 
he  knew  too  much,  that  his  sight  was  microscopic, 
and  interfered  with  the  just  perspective,  the  seeing 
of  the  whole?  He  is  fragmentary;  a  writer  of  oc 
casional  poems,  and  of  an  encyclopaedia  of  sentences. 
When  he  sits  down  to  write  a  drama  or  a  tale,  he 
collects  and  sorts  his  observations  from  a  hundred 
sides,  and  combines  them  into  the  body  as  fitly  as 
he  can.  A  great  deal  refuses  to  incorporate ;  this  he 
adds  loosely,  as  letters  of  the  parties,  leaves  from 
their  journals,  or  the  like.  A  great  deal  still  is  left 
that  will  not  find  any  place.  This  the  bookbinder 
alone  can  give  any  cohesion  to ;  and  hence,  notwith 
standing  the  looseness  of  many  of  his  works,  we 
have  volumes  of  detached  paragraphs,  aphorisms, 
Xenien,  etc. 

I  suppose  the  worldly  tone  of  his  tales  grew  out 
of  the  calculations  of  self-culture.  It  was  the  in 
firmity  of  an  admirable  scholar,  wlio  loved  the  world 
out  of  gratitude  ;  who  knew  where  libraries,  galleries, 
architecture,  laboratories,  savans,  and  leisure  were 
to  be  had,  and  who  did  not  quite  trust  the  compen 
sations  of  poverty  and  nakedness.  Socrates  loved 
Athens ;  Montaigne,  Paris ;  and  Madame  de  Stae'l 
said  she  was  only  vulnerable  on  that  side  (namely, 
of  Paris).  It  has  its  favorable  aspect.  All  the 
geniuses  are  usually  so  ill-assorted  and  sickly,  that 
one  is  ever  wishing  them  somewhere  else.  We 
seldom  see  anybody  who  is  not  uneasy  or  afraid  to 
live.  There  is  a  slight  blush  of  shame  on  the  cheek 
of  good  men  and  aspiring  men,  and  a  spice  of  carica 
ture.  But  this  man  was  entirely  at  home  and  happy 


GOETHE;   OR,    THE    WRITER.          233 

in  his  century  and  the  world.  None  was  so  fit  to 
live,  or  more  heartily  enjoyed  the  game.  In  this 
aim  of  culture,  which  is  the  genius  of  his  works,  is 
their  power.  The  idea  of  absolute,  eternal  truth, 
without  reference  to  my  own  enlargement  by  it,  is 
higher.  The  surrender  to  the  torrent  of  poetic  in 
spiration  is  higher ;  but,  compared  with  any  motives 
on  which  books  are  written  in  England  and  America, 
this  is  very  truth,  and  has  the  power  to  inspire  which 
belongs  to  truth.  Thus  has  he  brought  back  to  a 
book  some  of  its  ancient  might  and  dignity. 

Goethe,  coming  into  an  over-civilized  time  and 
country,  when  original  talent  was  oppressed  under 
the  load  of  books  and  mechanical  auxiliaries  and 
the  distracting  variety  of  claims,  taught  men  how 
to  dispose  of  this  mountainous  miscellany,  and  make 
it  subservient.  I  join  Napoleon  with  him,  as  being 
both  representatives  of  the  impatience  and  reaction 
of  nature  against  the  morgue  of  conventions,  —  two 
stern  realists,  who,  with  their  scholars,  have  severally 
set  the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  cant  and  seem 
ing,  for  this  time,  and  for'  all  time.  This  cheerful 
laborer,  with  no  external  popularity  or  provocation, 
drawing  his  motive  and  his  plan  from  his  own  breast, 
tasked  himself  with  stints  for  a  giant,  and,  without 
relaxation  or  rest,  except  by  alternating  his  pursuits, 
worked  on  for  eighty  years  with  the  steadiness  of  his 
first  zeal. 

It  is  the  last  lesson  of  modern  science,  that  the 
highest  simplicity  of  structure  is  produced,  not  by 
few  elements,  but  by  the  highest  complexity.  Man 
is  the  most  composite  of  all  creatures :  the  wheel- 


234  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

insect,  volvox globator ',  is  at  the  other  extreme.  We 
shall  learn  to  draw  rents  and  revenues  from  the 
immense  patrimony  of  the  old  and  the  recent  ages. 
Goethe  teaches  courage,  and  the  equivalence  of  all 
times ;  that  the  disadvantages  of  any  epoch  exist 
only  to  the  faint-hearted.  Genius  hovers  with  his 
sunshine  and  music  close  by  the  darkest  and  deafest 
eras.  No  mortgage,  no  attainder,  will  hold  on  men 
or  hours.  The  world  is  young ;  the  former  great 
men  call  to  us  affectionately.  We  too  must  write 
Bibles,  to  unite  again  the  heavens  and  the  earthly 
world.  The  secret  of  genius  is  to  suffer  no  fiction 
to  exist  for  us ;  to  realize  all  that  we  know ;  in  the 
high  refinement  of  modern  life,  in  arts,  in  sciences, 
in  books,  in  men,  to  exact  good  faith,  reality,  and  a 
purpose ;  and  first,  last,  midst,  and  without  end,  to 
honor  every  truth  by  use. 


THE    END. 


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